


the quiet ones

by prismatical



Series: detective stories [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Gen, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Minor Body Horror, Mystery, Suspense, and a little angst, as a treat, careful navigation of canon, case fic vibes?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prismatical/pseuds/prismatical
Summary: It's Halloween in Gotham. There's something in Wayne Manor.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: detective stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784842
Comments: 108
Kudos: 175





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to my...halloween special? please enjoy me neglecting all of my personal responsibilities because this idea woke me up at gunpoint in the middle of the night and refused to let me do anything else until I started writing it down. happy fucking spooky szn everybody :D
> 
> I am...honestly very embarrassingly excited to share this, trying my hand at more horror-y vibes. I wanted so badly to wait until it was all written so I could actually stick to a regular sched, but I was so psyched I couldn't stop myself. so even though I likely won't be done by the end of october, well, november can still be spooky, right? 
> 
> edit! - if you don't want the ~mystery~ aspect of the story to be given away, I highly recommend steering clear of the comments. just a tip, but completely up to you.
> 
> anyway. let me know what you think! and please enjoy.

_11:59 PM_

_October 31_

* * *

“The Manor isn’t haunted,” Bruce repeats.

He sounds almost irritable about it, and it would be funny. It _would_ be. If the room wasn’t pitch black. If Dick’s lungs weren’t filled with stifling, frozen air. If Damian’s blood-stained hoodie wasn’t still sticky between his fingers. Damian’s shoulder shaking slightly beneath his grasp.

If Dick weren’t paralyzingly certain that there is something in the room with them. Watching through the dark.

“B,” he says. There’s a scrape. Dick snaps his head blindly towards the sound. A thud, from the opposite direction. “B,” he warns, gripping Damian’s shoulder tighter.

Something creaks.

“We need to find a way out onto the grounds,” Damian insists lowly. “It seems to be tied to the house—”

“We _need_ to find Cass,” Dick whispers back. “She could still be—”

“Quiet, both of you,” Bruce orders, voice pulled taut. His grip on Dick's arm is numbing. “Listen.“

Dick stills, ears straining. He’d heard it too. Heard something. Heard—

“. _..you,_ ” the word is clear, even over the sound of something dragging across the carpet. Dick squints into the dark, but it’s like staring at a painted wall. It's a miracle he even knows what direction he's facing. All he can do is listen as the dragging turns into a strained, scraping voice. _“You…?”_

“Don’t give it your name,” Dick whispers immediately. “No names at all.”

Raven, Zatanna, every Titan or teammate or expert who’s ever dealt with the metaphysical has always reinforced the same lessons:

Never offer your name. Never leave doors open.

And never, never make deals.

Bruce makes a noise in acknowledgment, the floor creaking. His hand vanishes from Dick’s arm, and Dick wants to hiss at him not to get split up in the dark. But too late, Bruce is raising his voice.

“Who are you?” he asks. He’s just a voice, floating next to them.

 _“....Catch,”_ it rasps. _“I’m. Ca...tch._ ”

The word sizzles into a shuffling. A thump, behind them. 

“You’re called Catch?” Dick asks, turning his head and trying to force his eyes to adjust. No dice. “Good to meet you, Catch. I hope the feeling's mutual.”

“A ridiculous name,” Damian mutters, and Dick squeezes his shoulder in warning.

“Is there something you want from us, Catch?” Bruce says steadily. “Something we can help you with?”

There’s a long pause, the only sounds from Damian’s slight panting and the pounding in Dick’s ears.

_“Go...ing.”_

“Going where?” Dick puts in, when Bruce doesn’t respond right away. There’s a creak of wood, a shift in the atmosphere. Something is scraping along the far wall. Dick takes a deep breath. “Can we help you get where you’re going?”

_“To.”_

“To where?” Damian prompts, his eye-roll nearly audible. “Why—”

_“Catch. You.”_

Dick’s stomach goes cold.

_“You. I’m. Going.”_

“B,” he says, pulling Damian closer to his side and reaching for Bruce. “B, we need to—“

His hand falls into emptiness, groping in the dark as the voice swells around them. He pulls Damian back with him, still reaching frantically.

There’s nothing there.

_"Catch. You. I'm."_

“B?” he hisses. _“B!_ Where are you? _”_

“Father?”

Dick lets five, dizzying pounds in his chest go by. The resounding silence is terrible and definite. 

"Father?" If Dick's hand weren't gripping his shoulder, it might as well have been coming from nowhere. The air is almost too cold to breathe.

A creak.

_“Catch...you. I’m going. To.”_

Damian squawks in protest as Dick drags him backwards, following the faint draught of air from the door. He grits his teeth, wanting to reach out in case Bruce is still—Bruce is—

A scrape in the dark. Dick knows what Bruce would say. Dick knows his call. 

“Robin. We need to go.”

“What about Father?” Damian resists, pulling back. Dick nearly loses his grip, chest hammering as he seizes tighter to the blood-tacky fabric of Damian’s hoodie. If he'd let go, lost him too— “We can’t _leave_ him, I won’t— ”

There’s a deafening _bang_ behind them, and Dick jerks back. Then heavy, heavy footsteps. Footsteps quickening across the room _towards_ them—

“ _Now,_ Robin!”

A rotten choking sound slinks out from the dark as they stumble blindly from the room. Dick feels Damian trip over something, and wrenches him upright as the air changes, opening up. They’re in the hall, they must be. It’s still too dark to see.

There is something wheezing behind them, words in time with its choppy, dragging footsteps.

 _“Catch you. I’m going. To catch you. Catch. You._ Catch. You.”


	2. Chapter 2

_10:06 AM_

_October 31_

* * *

“Happy Halloween!” Stephanie cheers, shedding bags onto the kitchen table as she unwinds her scarf. Dick looks up, pulling back some of his papers to make room. “I bear gifts and expect adoration in return. And money. These weren’t cheap.”

“Only if you managed to make decent purchases,” Damian sniffs, climbing onto a chair to reach for a bag. His haughty expression is immediately replaced by a look of near glee as he yanks out a yellow bag of aamrus candies. “Brown, how did you—!”

“Yes?” Steph raises an eyebrow, grinning. Damian schools his features as Dick smothers a laugh.

“I wasn’t aware they sold this brand here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I...appreciate the gesture.”

“Theeere it is,” Steph says, punching Damian’s shoulder as she sashays across the kitchen.

Damian just scowls in a way Dick knows is more for show than anything, and sits next to Dick, picking through the bags.

“Do you guys have like...haunted bowls?” Stephanie asks, opening cabinets. “Like some creepy-looking, ancient crystal or something equally weird? ”

“Third cabinet to the left of the pantry,” Dick answers absently, adding another signature to the _'Approved Learning Environment for Observed Child'_ page and twisting his wrist with a grimace. Why his supervisor insists on hard copies, he'll never know, but he can at least acknowledge that Blüd's social work center is more efficient than Gotham's. “It’s great-great-great-grandpa Wayne’s good crystal, or something. Though if you break it, you’re the one explaining it to Alfred when he gets back from visiting Julia.”

“Risk accepted. But I’m honestly surprised you’ve never had a haunting, with how much ancient crap is in this house,” Stephanie says, bringing the bowl over and setting it down with a crystalline _ting_. “In fact, you guys probably do, you’d just never notice because all of Gotham insists on infrastructure that looks like it was designed by a Bram Stoker super-fan. The whole city is probably haunted based on aesthetic alone.”

“At least Gotham architects have some sense of pride in their work, unlike Metropolis,” Damian says, eyeing the bowl skeptically. Dick glances up, smiling—he’s heard Damian’s lecture on art deco architecture twice before, and it has so far gotten increasingly passionate with each iteration. Damian just frowns, though. “But you’re exaggerating, Brown.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes.

“Dick, when was the last time you saw a gargoyle in Blüdhaven that wasn't on top of a church?"

Dick opens his mouth, tapping his pen against his chin.

“...huh.”

“I’m right,” Stephanie says, smug as she dumps the candy into the bowl. “In any other city in the world, this house would be that one goth Sims family that no one ever plays as. Here, it’s just another house.”

“Goth, you say?” Dick sits up straighter, mouth twitching. “I mean.” Stephanie’s eyes go wide, hands flying up as if she can read his mind.

“No. Don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking —”

“It’s called _Goth_ am, Steph. Not—“

“Dick, don’t you dare—”

“ _Goth_ am, not—”

“Stop stop stop.”

“ _Prep_ ham.” Dick grins, unashamed as Damian’s whole face wrinkles up in disgust.

“Horrible,” Stephanie groans, burying her face in her hands. “You’re old, how do you even know what prep means? I’m telling Timothy and we’re both going to cringe at you to your face.”

“I’m not that old!” Dick protests, dodging a kit-kat to the head. “And that was good! I thought you'd appreciate that one.”

“I have to agree with Brown,” Damian says, still looking almost pained. “And once again voice my concern for your role as the family’s eldest.”

Steph sighs, hands dropping.

“It gets worse, kid. Did you know this guy was Batman?”

“Regardless,” Damian says, reaching for the bowl. “There’s nothing supernatural in the Manor. I would have been informed.”

Dick bites his lip, forcing back his grin and instead looking up at Damian with as surprised of an expression as he can muster. This...is too good of a chance to pass up.

“...you don’t know?”

Stephanie’s face lights up at the same time a line appears between Damian’s eyebrows.

“Know what?”

“Steph, he doesn’t know,” Dick breathes, widening his eyes in faux incredulity.

Stephanie shakes her head in fake disappointment, tutting.

“It _sounds_ like he doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” Damian’s voice sharpens. "What are you blathering about?" 

“About the ghost, duh,” Dick says, playing up his surprise. The line in Damian’s brow deepens. “What, B never told you?”

“I....you’re trying to trick me.” Damian glares. “Father would never keep that sort of information from me.”

There’s a scrape at the door.

“Timboree!” Steph crows, looking over. “Got your wallet? You owe me for stooping low enough to buy brand Pez.”

“Do we know if—oh, hey Steph,” Tim looks up from the tablet just in time to stop himself from running into a chair. “Do we know if—wait, what are you doing here?”

Stephanie rolls her eyes.

“What’s it look like? I’m spreading capitalistic cheer. Here.” She chucks a Snickers at him. “Congrats, Tim, you’re a capitalist.”

“Don’t remind me,” Tim grumbles, unwrapping the candy bar and sinking into one of the counter stools. “Hey, Dick. Do _you_ know if—” he halts, candy bar half in his mouth as he stares at Dick. “Wait, what are _you_ doing here? I thought Bruce called you.”

“Stealing all of Damian’s Mars Bars,” he answers easily, shuffling his file closed and bobbing his eyebrows at Tim. “And yours, if you’re not careful.”

“You will not,” Damian snaps, scooting his chair out of Dick’s reach. “Drake, Grayson is attempting to convince me that Father’s ancestral home used to be haunted. I trust you to at least tell me something _vaguely_ more factual.”

Tim glances up at that, eyebrows rising. He looks over Damian’s head at Stephanie, who presses her hands together like a prayer. At Dick, who nods frantically.

“Ummm, yeah,” Tim says, gaze returning to his tablet. “I heard about something like that. Way before my time, though.”

Damian turns his head towards Dick, who pretends to be focused on clipping the file closed. There’s a long pause, Dick waiting for the curiosity to run over.

“As much as I’d like to hear this story, uh, again, I gotta find Cass,” Stephanie announces, breaking the silence. She snatches a bag of candy, sailing towards the door. “Don’t let your brothers scare you, Dami. The ghost only haunted Dick for like, a year.”

An indefinable expression crosses Damian’s face, but he remains silent until Stephanie’s footsteps have faded down the hall. Finally, he turns in his chair.

“When was this ghost business? Why was I not informed by Father?” He sounds indignant, more than anything.

“Whoa, hey,” Dick says, standing. “It was a while ago, he probably just forgot about it. Or deemed it ‘irrelevant information,’ as he does. It’s not any sort of slight towards you, I promise.”

Making up something that’s going to hurt his feelings was never the goal, though honestly Dick should have predicted he’d immediately take it to heart. He ruffles Damian’s hair as he passes, snatching pumpkin-shaped candy from the bowl.

“Don’t worry, Dames. I solemnly swear to you that Bruce would have told you if he thought it was important.” 

“It’s _my_ rightful home too, I should know about it,” Damian says, crossing his arms. He seems to stew for a second, before squinting up at Dick. “Well?”

“Well what?”

Damian glares.

“Are you planning to elaborate?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure. It was when…uhhh.” Dick does a quick calculation. Duke and Jason are supposed to patrol together so Damian won’t have time to interrogate them before Dick gets to them. Dick is supposed to partner with Cass tonight, who will be easy to convince to play along.

Bruce is in Halloween-mode, and probably won’t be in the mindset to entertain whatever in-depth questions Damian will ask. Bruce is taking him and the others to a matinee of some movie—the price of a nighttime job, a lifetime of matinees—but if Dick can get to him now….and there’s always the sliver of a chance that Bruce would even play along. Dick was around when Bruce used to actually play up his own subtle humor on the regular, and every now and then Dick will do a double take when it surfaces.

It’s a little bittersweet. But Damian deserves that. Damian deserves a Halloween with his dad, even if he’s not exactly a little kid anymore.

Dick clears his throat, plan in place.

“When I was in the Manor, my...third year? Fourth?”

“That sounds right,” Tim nods, biting his lip without looking up. “You were definitely Robin.”

“I was Robin,” he agrees. Damian is watching him closely, suspicion in his eyes. “Yeah, it was nothing too major. Just weird, little things, you know? Cold spots, doors closing. Footsteps. Whispers.”

“Didn’t you tell me it slashed up your bed once?” Tim asks with a yawn, and Dick nods, keeping his eyes wide as if remembering. Damian’s too shrewd to believe the big stuff, but small things, with something like that thrown in? Dick tosses Tim a hershey in appreciation. It bounces off his head and onto the counter, unnoticed.

“Oh, yeah,” Dick nods, perching on the counter and stuffing his own candy into his mouth. “Tha’s what made Bruce decide I wasn’t just making things up, because he knew I wouldn’t do that to Alfred. My sheets were in absolute _ribbons_.”

The line between Damian’s brow deepens further.

“What did Father do?” he asks, looking from Tim to Dick. Dick shrugs.

“Called in a magic user, did a cleansing. We still got cold spots for a while after, but everything else just sort of…” he wiggles his fingers in the air. “Faded away.”

“You never told me if you found out who it was,” Tim prompts absently. Dick chews thoughtfully. 

“I think it might have been a house caretaker,” he says, tapping his chin. Damian knows more about Wayne family history than he does, so he can’t slip up and say a wrong name. “Yeah, you know how no one lived here during the war? They paid a family friend to live-in and take care of it for when they got back from overseas. Can’t remember how he died, though.”

Damian squints at him for a long time. Dick holds his breath.

“It's foolish of you to think I would believe you,” he says finally, firmly but there’s something uncertain in his eyes. Dick suppresses a grin as he adds, “And I will be certain to ask Father to prove you’re telling me nonsense. Once Halloween patrol is done, that is.”

Dick frowns at that, glancing at Tim. He doesn’t seem fazed, just offers Dick an unhappy little shrug.

“Hang on,” Dick says, looking between the two of them. “Isn’t he supposed to take you all to a movie? That new Ghibli film, or whatever? Isn't that why I'm here so early in the first place, to prep intel for Halloween patrol so he can take you all out?”

Damian doesn’t meet his eye, instead leaning once again over the table to pick out a Reeses. Dick feels his frown deepen.

“Dames?”

“I thought he called you,” Tim says, eyes fixed pointedly on his tablet. "But plans, uh, changed. Bruce has been downstairs since the day before yesterday. "

Dick knows that tone. It’s the patented Tim-Drake-I-don’t-want-to-seem-disappointed-because-I-think-I-should-be-mature-but-I-really-really-am tone. Dick hates that tone.

“Has he.”

“Father decided he wanted to review something about Scarecrow’s patterns himself,” Damian adds, still examining the cellophane of the Reeses with unerring intensity. “He believes he can make a breakthrough before tonight, and reduce risk of ambush while we are on patrol.”

“... _does_ he.” Dick nods to himself a few times, reigning in the testiness in his tone as Tim shoots him a look.

“Dick, it’s fine,” he says. “It’s not like it’s for a regular patrol. It’s _Halloween_ , in _Gotham_. And I blow off plans all the time for vigilante stuff.”

 _You’re not anyone’s parent,_ Dick almost bites back, but instead sets his shoulders and purses his lips into a flat grin and slides from the counter. He tucks the kit-kat wrapper into his pocket, snatching the Reeses out of Damian’s hand as he passes.

“Grayson!”

Dick winks, ruffling Tim’s hair as Damian launches himself at Dick. He dodges deftly, tossing the candybar to his other hand as Damian makes a swipe for it.

“Dick, it _is_ fine,” Tim says again, not even glancing up as Damian fakes a lunge at Dick. He manages to knock a foot out from under him, forcing Dick to throw his weight backwards into a walkover—and knock his elbow directly into a vase of chrysanthemums on the counter as he straightens.

“There’s a lot of moving parts, with the Joker gone,” Tim continues, in that same tone. “And it’s better safe than sorry.”

Dick lunges as the vase wobbles, water slopping out across the countertop. Tim lifts his tablet.

“He’s just being thorough, and Scarecrow _is_ up to something. Plus, ” Tim sighs, tapping something on the screen. Dick manages to steady the vase, and Damian takes the opportunity to snatch the Reeses with a gleeful cackle, ducking away even as water cascades to the floor. “It’s not like we can’t see a movie anytime, or just go by ourselves.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dick exhales, shifting the vase closer to the center of the now-flooded counter. Damian's expression is victorious as he tears open the Reeses. Tim looks up.

“Just...please don’t make it a thing,” he says, face twisting up. “It’s Halloween patrol. None of us really want a bunch of weird tense silences on comms, on top of whatever we’re going to run into.”

“Whoa there, give me a little credit—” Tim’s eyebrows come together beseechingly, and Dick raises his hands. “C'mon Tim. I will do my _best_ , not to make it a thing. But I do have to at least ask him about it. You guys deserve to do something fun for Halloween with him before the not-always-so-fun part, you know?”

Tim hops down from the counter stool, shrugging.

“I got to help Babs take down a bunch of online neo-Nazi chatrooms.” Before Dick can say a word in warning, Tim reaches over Damian’s shoulder, grabs the Reeses, and pops the whole thing in his mouth. “Tha’ wash fun.”

 _“Drake!”_ Damian whirls. Tim is gone from the room with a snicker and a wave, Damian hurtling after him.

Dick sighs, left alone with a few torn candy wrappers and the steady sound of dripping.

“Don’t make it a thing, Grayson,” he sighs to himself, eyeing the hall leading to the study. "Yeah yeah." 

Suddenly feeling watched—it’s probably Alfred, judging him from an ocean away—he reaches for a towel to mop up the water.

It’s not a surprise about the movie, not really. Bruce _does_ this. One track mind, Dick has said before, he’ll say again. Still, he bites his lip as he wrings the water into the sink, glancing again at the quiet hall.

Depending on how knee-deep Bruce is in whatever he thinks he discovered, there’s still the chance Dick can cajole him into doing...well, what he shouldn’t really need cajoling for. Damian, Cass, Duke, Tim...Stephanie, too, now she’s here.

It’s not even about how Dick had woken up early to make the drive to come help out with the admittedly heavy Halloween prep. It’s about how five kids are depending on Bruce for a pleasant outing before whatever Gotham-brewed horrors they’ll have to go through tonight, and that _apparently_ isn’t enough for him to….Dick exhales as he heads for the hall.

_Don’t make it a thing._

Something drips.

Dick stops, glancing back at the counter. There are a few soggy chrysanthemum petals scattered from when the vase had been shaken, but the surface is dry.

Another drop, a wet splat. Dick turns. It’s not the towel in the sink.

“What the hell?” he murmurs to himself. Another drip. 

He follows the noise until he’s standing beneath the hall vent, an old-fashioned hinged with twirling gold fleur-de-lis.

A cold drop spits on his cheek, and he ducks back.

“Grosssss,” he complains, wiping it away. Alright, standing directly beneath it, less than the smartest thing he’s ever done.

He drags a stool from the kitchen, climbing to reach the grate. His hand touches metal, then sopping fabric.

“What the hell?” he repeats under his breath as he manages to open the grate—the dark crater of the vent stretches and turns, hissing cold air.

But Dick is focused on what’s suddenly tangled around his hand.

There’s... a long ribbon of pale cloth, twisted around the vent’s grate so a torn, thready edge peeks out. Dick frees his hand and pulls at it, the fabric giving where it reaches the curve in the vent and it just….keeps coming.

Like pulling hair from a drain, the vent regurgitates more and more dripping fabric until a wet, stringy clump falls into Dick’s arms.

“Ew?” he says, holding the length of thin cloth at arms’ length and wrinkling his nose at the wet spots—condensation, if he had to guess, or coolant. Whether this is the remnant of a prank, or a misguided attempt at hiding evidence of….what, a sewing project? A mummy? is harder to determine.

He shuts the vent with a screech of metal, hopping down from the stool.

Dick carries the trailing cloth and dumps it in the laundry room, considering. His money is on Tim, who had jumped in so easily with the whole ghost-story—there’s always the chance there’s an ongoing prank war he just doesn’t know about. Random and unknowable science experiments aren’t exactly out of the norm for any of them, and there also isn’t anything remarkably villainous about a bunch of fabric in a vent.

And if Dick checks the cameras later to make _sure_ it’s completely innocuous, well...he’d been raised to be paranoid. And sometimes it pays off. 

He glances up at the vent as he passes beneath it once more. The curling tines of the fleur-de-lis glint dully. Dick shakes himself, setting his eyes on the far door of the study.

 _Don’t make it a thing,_ he repeats to himself, trying to infuse some cheer into his-self talk. _It’s Halloween. Don’t make it a thing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note that I personally take no issue with art deco. 
> 
> also. readers, kudo'ers, commenters, etc - you are as always so unfathomably kind. I don't know what to say other than thank you for your enthusiasm already! I'm excited, and I'm so glad you are too! scheduling is going to still be fairly random based on when I write, so hang in there. 
> 
> thanks a bunch, I hope you're doing okay. stay tuned. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao so I did end up upping the rating just because I was informed my scale of ‘gen-rated’ horror may not match everyone’s - nothing is actually different, I promise, and for the record I still don’t think it’s _that_ scary, but would rather err on the side of caution. 
> 
> anyway. please enjoy, let me know your thoughts, and on with the show. :)

There exists a space between a person’s shoulder blades that stretches and contracts and speaks more plainly than most do with their tongues. It’s a matter of fear. Or not fear. Lacking, fear.

His posture...changes at the start of the last poem. That’s how she knows. The space shrinks. Shoulders back. Courage.

“…and that’s the trick of it.” Duke’s voice is low, the space becoming even smaller as he holds up the book he’s been pretending to read from. Ok. Not pretend on the first two. But this one….Cass suppresses a smile at the uncertainty, the string of hopeful pride across his shoulders.“‘Flies drown easily. Flies drink what you offer them, ‘cause they don’t know any better. So drain away what’s bitter. What’s unwhole; wash the mirror with oil instead. Gold ferments into something, too honest for flies to touch.””

Cass leans back into the couch once the last syllable has faded, arranging her expression to be neutral. Neutral-ish. Duke is peeking up at her _(anxiety hope pride)_ hands clasping the book.

“Last one,” she says firmly, before Duke can open his mouth. His eyes nearly bug out of his head as he sits up straighter _(surprise excitement hope)_ quickly enough that Alfred the Cat startles and leaps from the couch. “Definitely. Favorite.”

“Really? You sure? ”

She squints at him, pretending to reconsider. She points at the book.

“Can I see?”

“Uhh—” he glances down at the book, where a slip of paper is already falling through the pages. He tucks the paper in further, his movements taken aback. “I thought you liked listening better?”

She shrugs, tilting her head at the sound of what sounds like a screech of _“Drake!”_ from somewhere in the manor, and the pounding of feet. A door slams.

“Good poet. I want to see who.” She makes a grabby hand for the book, glaring at Duke as he jerks it away. “Give.”

Duke eyes dart from her to the door, clutching the book tighter _(uncertainty calculation intent- )_ Oh.

Funny.

“You can try,” she says, face breaking into a grin even as he adjusts his legs against the couch. “You won’t win.”

“You’re forgetting I can just basically cut the lights on you,” he argues. His eyes are still on the door, one palm shifting up the way it does when he’s thinking about shadows. “That’ll at least buy me time, right?”

“You won’t win,” Cass repeats, still holding her hand out. Holding herself still. Ready. Smile.

Duke huffs, handing the book over. The paper slips out, the words from before scribbled and illegible except for the top which Cass blinks at before grinning smugly _\- by Duke Thomas._

“I was right,” she says, waving the paper. “Good poet.”

“You knew,” he accuses, face now buried in his hands. “Of course you knew. Why’d I think you wouldn't know? Why’d you _let_ me think you wouldn't know?”

“Detective,” she says, standing and handing the poem back. “And I...detect? Deduct? Deduce. You are good. Really.” She nods, spreading her hands, dropping her shoulders, wishing he could read the honesty in the motion. “Should share.”

“I—no. I mean. I dunno.” He leans over the paper, rubbing the back of his neck _(uncertainty pride)_ “‘Cause this isn’t even one I like that much— _(lie)_ — “and it’s still needs some tweaking—“

They both look up at loud bang of the door. Stephanie is framed in the doorway, panting.

 _“There_ you are,” she wheezes, slamming the door shut and throwing her back against it. “You have to help me.”

There’s something manic written into her arms, the enormous bag of candy cradled there. Duke jumps up, brow furrowing.

“What’s—?”

“We’re trying to convince Damian the house used to be haunted,” she breathes, shoving the bag of candy at Cass. “God, I never knew just how much he hangs on Dick’s every word, the _power_ —I mean I knew but I never _thought_ —”

“So we’re not being attacked.” Duke sits back down with a sigh, reaching for the book and closing the paper in it. “Don’t know why I assumed.”

“Did you hear me?” Stephanie flops onto the couch. “ _Damian_. Can possibly be convinced the house is _haunted_.”

“Is or was?”

“Who cares?” Stephanie flips upside down on the couch, hanging her legs over the back. “We’ve got until noon to set up some “evidence”—” she fingerquotes. “And then—”

“Not noon.” The words might come across a little sharper than she wanted, and Cass bites her lip as Stephanie looks up, _(surprise curiosity concern)_ head angled against the couch. “All day.”

“What?” Stephanie rights herself, legs slinging to the floor. “What about the movie? I thought we were leaving at noon.”

Duke looks as if he is suddenly finding the cover of the book extremely interesting. He isn’t, Cass knows.

“Bruce is...busy,” Cass says. She’s not sure if she’s as convincing as Dick is, when he lies— _she_ can still tell, but he is purposeful in how he holds his limbs. Aware. The others arrange themselves to believe him. She lets her shoulders stay flat as she pulls her mouth into a pursed grin. “It’s okay. ”

“Um.” Stephanie glances at Duke, hands twitching on the couch cushion. Cass winces at the tension there. “Wasn’t that the whole point of me buying all this candy? To sneak it into the theater so we wouldn’t have to buy expensive theater crap, even though Bruce is filthy rich and it would be hilarious to see him _completely_ misunderstand when we start pulling bulk bags out of our clothes?”

Duke snorts into his hand.

“Well?”

“We can still go,” Cass says. Shoulders perfectly flat. Arms untense. “It’s okay.”

Stephanie looks at her for a moment more, lips twisted. Her hand—now a fist— twitches against the couch.

_(irritation frustration concern)_

“Riiiight,” Stephanie sighs at last. There is something…something in the way she falls against the couch that makes Cass let her fake smile dissipate.

“What.”

“What?” Stephanie bounces back, arms crossing. “I said right. Agreement. Copacetic, amigo. We just gotta pick who’s driving. Dibs on shotgun.”

“Not how shotgun works, Steph.” Duke says, rubbing his face tiredly. “Visual on the car or it doesn’t count.”

“Maybe I saw it on my way in.”

“But did you?”

Cass just stands, studying her.

“Something else, miss chatterbox?” Stephanie’s tone is half-defensive, but…Cass blinks at the set of her arms.

Disappointment. It’s disappointment.

“You’re...unhappy with Bruce.”

“I mean, no duh. Had to make a trip to Walmart for all this crap.” She pauses, mouth twisting again. “Aren’t you?” When Cass doesn’t answer, she glances to Duke. “Aren’t _you?_ ”

“I mean…” There’s discomfort in the way Duke shifts his legs. “Yeah? But he’s Batman, I kinda figure the guy has a reason. And like Cass said, we can always go by ourselves. I feel kinda bad for Damian though, kid was excited.”

“More.” Cass shakes her head, uncertain why Stephanie is lying, why her shifting matches the way she's spoken during other conversations. Worse conversations. They’ve….talked about Stephanie’s father before. And Cass’s. Missing a movie isn’t the same as how….as what they did. “What’s...your problem?”

“Yeah, fine, okay.” Steph throws her hands up. “I think it’s dumb he promised to take you to a movie if he was never going to. Sue me.”

“Just a movie,” Cass says with a frown. “We can—”

“I know he’s Mister Priorities, but I know for a fact that last Halloween kicked Tim’s ass with fear toxin, and as much of an _utter_ brat Damian is, he’s supposed to be stuffing his face with candy not, what?” She waves a vague hand. “Dodging actual pitchforks, breathing in nightmare gas? So yeah, you’d think Bruce would take the day before a bunch of vigilante bull goes down, to try to be an actual parent.”

Duke’s shoulders drop, something heavy and wistful there. Cass keeps hers flat. Steady. If she. She isn’t—can’t be—disappointed, really, because she knows Bruce. He is not trying to...hurt them. He is never. He’s just.

She could remind Stephanie that they both know what a bad parent _really_ looks like. Stephanie would laugh, and Duke would pretend to look concerned, and it would...be okay? And they would argue over who would drive them to the movie. But.

“Just a movie,” Cass says again, a little more forcefully, and Duke and Steph both twitch their upper bodies towards her at that _(surprise concern upset)_ and she doesn’t meet their eyes. “I need to.” She bites her lip, picking a verb at random. “Go.”

Stephanie and Duke have matching raised eyebrows, matching folding of their elbows.

_(skepticism)_

Stephanie rises, candy scattering to the floor as she reaches _(exasperation concern)_ —

“Cass, come on, I didn’t mean to make it—we can still go without him, I’m just—”

Cass slips through the sitting room door, shutting it behind her. She bites her lip, glancing back as she ducks into her own bedroom, a few doors down. There had been no anger in Stephanie’s outstretched arm but….she considers, then leaves the door open. They will let her be for now, then wander in and pretend nothing happened. And things will be ok. 

Cassandra takes a deep breath, flexing her hands as she crosses her room and enters the bathroom. The tile is cool even through her socked feet, the soft morning light of the window reflected in the mirror paneled across nearly the entire wall. She catches her own eye.

An idea.

She squares herself in front of the mirror, loosening her limbs. She studies the arc of her own posture. There’s still a tension in her shoulders and arms. The way she holds her head. The angle of her chin.

_(disappointment)_

Cassandra bites her lip. It’s disappointment.

She flexes her hand again. Ok. She’s disappointed. But that doesn't mean she needs to be. Bruce...isn't wanting her to be disappointed. Not usually. Though, she hasn't seen him since he'd vanished into the cave, so she doesn't truly know what he's thinking, but...but. 

She closes her eyes, thinking back. The misstep. The missed step. Bruce doesn't...get mad for the sake of getting mad, because it's always more than anger in his movements. Then, Cass doesn't think she's ever missed a step in front of him before. She opens her eyes. 

Frowns, staring. Because there’s something—something different about the image in the mirror. Unfamiliar. She studies herself for a second, confused, before her eyes refocus to the space behind her. The dark shape. 

There’s someone standing in the corner of the room.

She spins immediately, arms coming up and moving away. But her body has already relaxed by the time her brain articulates the thought.

Empty. 

She stands there for several seconds more, staring at the empty corner, the one on the far side from the door. There...she chances a look back at the mirror, equally empty. The corner.

The towels hanging there aren’t even disturbed. There’s nothing on the ground, no scuff. Cass glares at the empty space. The mirror.

If Dick thinks _she_ can be tricked into a haunting, he should watch out. Watch himself.

She looks up at the sound of her bedroom door clicking closed.

“Cain?”

She relaxes and returns her gaze to the mirror. She doesn’t look away from the spot, even as Damian leans into the bathroom doorway in her periphery. He takes a few more steps forward, entering the mirror-image with sketchbook in hand. Her eyes meet his in the reflection.

“Are you…observing something?” mirror-Damian asks, expression skeptical, posture curious.

“Maybe,” she answers, leaning closer to the mirror. She taps a single finger against the glass, but there’s no hollow ring. Nothing behind it then, but she’s seen mirrors with screens embedded into the glass.

“Has someone tampered with the mirror?” Damian sidles up next to the counter, sliding onto it with a scowl and setting his sketchbook to the side. “It was Grayson. He and Drake have been _trying_ to convince me the Manor was occupied by a spirit. They’ve been bothering me about it ever since.“

He sniffs, kicking a foot against the counter. Cass tilts her head to glance at him, the set of his shoulders. The tension in his arms. The angle of his chin. It’s familiar. She looks away.

“You’d think they would be more creative than knocking incessantly on my door. It was upsetting Zebidiah and Lulu, though I maintain they should have been allowed to remain in Drake’s quarters. Consistent environment is important.” Damian pauses, something hesitant in his posture as he glances up at her. “I thought perhaps...I could draw here, as they would be less likely to bother your quarters.”

Cass smiles, signing _welcome_ with her free hand. The mice might be her favorite of Damian’s pets, mostly because Lulu tends to bite everyone except for her and Damian. Watching Jason shout in pain and accuse the tiny scrap of a rodent of trying to tear his thumb off, as Dick, Tim, and Duke had laughed themselves to tears in the background had been one of the better afternoons of her life.

Damian sits there for a moment longer, fidgeting _(irritation curiosity uncertainty)_ and watching her hand skate over the mirror as she searches for where the screen must be hidden. He crosses his legs on the counter, not opening his sketchbook.

“They _were_ lying, in any case.”

Cass almost smiles at the unspoken _weren’t they?_

“Maybe,” she repeats, raising her eyebrows. Damian furrows his brow at her, opening his mouth to reply _(irritation uncertainty disbelief)._

“Cain, not you t—”

He’s interrupted by a loud knock at the bedroom door.

“There!” Damian exclaims, leaping from the counter and storming from the bathroom. There’s another resounding knock as Cass trails behind him. “And then when I attempt to catch one of them in the act—” he whips open the door, gesturing _(irritation uncertainty)._

Cass frowns, weaving around him to peer into the empty hall.

“I know it’s you, Drake, leave me alone!” Damian shouts into the empty hallway. He turns away, scoffing. “A ghost wouldn’t need to _knock_.”

Cass doesn’t retreat yet, listening—Duke laughs from a few doors down over the tinny, distant sound of a video playing from a phone; the dogs are barking faintly from the yard. None of the other doors in the hall look disturbed, and the motion camera at the end of the hall is a benign green. If Tim and Dick are hiding, they’re doing it well.

“I’ll be on the roof,” Damian grumbles, sketchbook in hand as he reappears. “If they don’t fear _you_ enough not to bother your quarters, they _certainly_ won’t fear disturbing Fa—disturbing the batcave.”

He dawdles at the threshold, and Cass manages to tear her eyes from the hall to study him. Not looking away this time. The set shoulders, the tense arms around the sketchbook, chin dipping down.

_(disappointment)_

Cass bites her lip. Flexes a hand. Almost wishes it weren’t so obvious, to her.

“We can go by ourselves,” she says, setting a light hand on his head. “To the movie. Dick will come. He will be happy to.”

Damian shakes it off, glaring at his sketchbook.

“I know _that_.“

There is a _but_ written in how he draws a breath, then lets it pass and instead picks at the edge of the paper. Cass, for once, doesn’t need to be able to know what he would have said. She has thought it.

_But Bruce..._

“Come on,” Cass says, thinking back to the tampered mirror, the jolt that had shot through her at the image. The person. Just...standing. It’s Halloween; they should at least undo whatever it is before patrol. Fear toxin and jump scares do not mix.

But. Until then.

“Operation...Hoard Movie Candy,” she says, putting a hand on Damian’s shoulder and bobbing her eyebrows. Something loosens in his arms, and Cass smiles. “Two targets. One bag. Unaware.”

Damian’s eyes light up, hands changing grip on his sketchbook _(interest disappointment intent)._

“Location?”

“Sitting room.”

Damian nods and they dart out into the hall in silent unison. Damian skulks straight towards the sitting room, but Cass pauses. Glances back.

Then, carefully, shuts the bedroom door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take care. :)


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce is so close.

If he can confirm his theory in the next hour, work out an additional set of contingency plans in the next following, he can sleep until patrol, and be refreshed and prepared to go out. As much as he wishes Alfred were here for Halloween, the sheer fraughtness that comes with rogues and their...enthusiasm for the holiday, he can’t blame him for time off. He can, however, take advantage of the fact to take short naps down here rather than be judged into sleeping in his own bed.

He runs a hand through his hair, leaning forward and squinting at the screen. His eyes had begun to blur a few hours ago— he’d taken a nap then, leaning into the chair and waking to the faint computer light.

He’s just reached the end of a civilian report when the ambient silence is broken by the soft, deliberate pad of footsteps. The rattle of metal behind him as someone climbs the computer platform stairs.

“Bruce?”

He makes a noise in acknowledgement, doesn’t look away from the screen—if he loses his train of thought, this will only go all the more slower.

“Bruce.” He feels someone standing behind him, and taps a final two keys. A hand comes down on his shoulder. _“Bruce.”_

“What?” he spins in the chair, internally wincing at the irritation in his voice. _Uncalled for,_ he can hear Alfred tutting. 

Dick is standing there, looking unimpressed. He nods up at the screen.

“Remember when you used to tell me that staring at screens too long would melt my brain and destroy my eyesight?”

“Hm.” Bruce turns back at the monitor. “I stand by that.”

“Great,” Dick sighs. “I’ll ask Leslie to schedule you an eye exam.”

Bruce continues typing for a moment, then realizes Dick hasn’t left, his presence tangible. His hands stall as he glances over, studying him. Casual clothes, candy wrapper sticking out of his pocket. He looks...tired, face bare of concealer so the faint shadows beneath his eyes are more pronounced than usual. Inkstains on his knuckle, a damp spot on his sleeve.

His hand had been cold.

“Is there something wrong?” Bruce asks warily, half-turning.

Dick stares at him for a moment.

“Can we take this somewhere I’m not being blinded?” he says finally, waving a hand at the computer. “What, is the screen at 200% brightness?”

Bruce frowns, hand tightening around the edge of the keyboard.

“It’s Halloween, Dick. I don’t have time—”

“Oh, so you _do_ know the date.”

Bruce halts, caught off guard by Dick’s tone. He forces his eyes to stay focused on Dick, as much as they want to flick back to the computer.

“Of course.”

Dick’s jaw visibly tightens, and for an utterly baffling moment Bruce thinks he’s going to open his mouth and say something cutting. But then he exhales.

“Look, Bruce. I don’t want to make this—” he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I get wanting to go over everything yourself, I really do. You know that I know how important it is. But I _told_ you I would take care of everything, and it’s not like I don’t know how—”

Ah.

“I forgot to call you,” Bruce nods, closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, chum.”

“—and he won’t say it to you but I know Damian _really_ wants to see that movie, and if you—wait, what?” Dick cuts himself off. “What?”

“I know you’re...busy,” Bruce says carefully, mentally calculating the time it would take for Dick to get back to Blüdhaven, and then back to Gotham for patrol. By his estimation, even Dick wouldn’t think it worth it. “I can’t return your time, obviously, but you’re welcome to do work here until—”

“Bruce. _What_ are you talking about?” Dick looks incredulous, and Bruce stops short. “You think this is about me getting here early?”

Bruce frowns, too wary to open his mouth.

“No, I—Bruce.” Dick heaves an enormous sigh. “I abso _lu_ tely don’t mind coming here early to help out on Halloween, I really don’t. I was happy to, actually, because I thought that meant you definitely weren’t going to flake out on the kids, but I guess I was wrong.“

Bruce sits up straighter.

“I am not _flaking_ , Dick,” he says, the word unhappy on his tongue. “There are some things that need taking care of to ensure the night goes well, and none of you are _injured._ ”

“I know that, Bruce,” Dick says, voice even. “Which is why I’m here to help, remember? I can take care of everything that needs taking care of for tonight, while you spend some time with everyone. Especially Cass, she's only been home for a few weeks—”

“That’s not—” It’s Bruce’s turn to press a finger to the bridge of his nose, and he absently wonders if Dick picked the mannerism up from him. “Certain things have changed, Dick. I need to compare this behavioural analysis with what Crane’s been up to since he escaped last month. There’s more data, and I’m certain—”

“Bruce.” Dick interrupts. He exhales again, speaking slowly and staring at Bruce with an expression he can’t even begin to interpret. “I am _asking_ you. Trust me to take care of the new info and tonight’s planning. Go to the movie. You can even fall asleep in the theater for all I care, just _be_ there.”

“Dick—”

“Promise I’ll take care of things here.” Dick offers him a flat smile “Trained by the best, after all.”

“Dick,” Bruce says again after a pause. “I appreciate it, I do. But you don’t understand.” Something shifts in Dick’s expression at those words, but Bruce barrels forward, more than a little exasperated. “I have reason to believe Crane has been working with Isley. There are details from a previous case of mine that may be significant. This isn’t a whim, Dick. I _need_ to do this.”

Dick stares at him for a moment more, smile vanished like it was never there. He huffs.

“Unbelievable.” He turns, throwing his hands in the air as he heads for the platform steps. “You can be _so_...unbelievable, Bruce.”

“Dick—”

He watches Dick walk away, suddenly very conscious of his heart in his chest. Dick doesn’t stop at the echo of Bruce’s voice, just calls back.

“I’ll text you when we get to the theater.” He sounds...tired. “At least eat at some point, Bruce. And get some sleep before patrol.”

Bruce turns back to the computer, still uncomfortably aware of the space behind his ribs. He stares down at the keys for a moment. Contemplating.

He needs to do this. It isn't negotiable. He is not...comfortable, shirking on a promise. But Tim had been understanding when he’d brought it up just a few hours ago, and none of the others had come down to speak with him about it since. Or perhaps that conversation had been yesterday.

Regardless, the fear of risk outweighs the discomfort. Dick doesn’t have the background on the case that he does, could easily miss something without the context of having worked with the material on Crane's recent movements. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust Dick, and Dick should know that. But the fact is, it’s Bruce's responsibility.

Bruce _needs_ to do this. _Bruce_ needs to do this. 

Several minutes go by, and he’s searching for a camera feed of Arkham when the sound of footsteps drifts back to him. He listens, excruciatingly aware as Dick climbs the platform behind him, finally stopping behind him where he’d stood just a moment before. Bruce waits, holding his breath.

Dick doesn’t do silent treatment unless he’s truly, truly upset, and he definitely wouldn’t return so soon after an exit unless he was more hurt than angry. Unless Bruce had made a graver error than he’d thought.

“Dick, I—” the stilted words echo. Dick doesn’t reply, and Bruce can’t bring himself to face him. He clears his throat, eyes fixed on the keyboard. “I can’t be responsible for something happening. If something happens. You understand that.”

Dick exhales quietly, directly behind him. His presence is like a physical thing.

“I can’t...” Bruce swallows, willing the words forward as he finally turns to face him. “Dick, I—”

The platform behind him is empty.

Bruce stands immediately, the cave colder and larger all at once. An involuntary shiver passes through him as he scans the space. Dick is fast. He’s not fast enough to have stood there, and then vanished over the railing in time for Bruce to turn around. Maybe—

“Cassandra?”

No answer. And Cassandra wouldn’t play tricks like that on Halloween, when tensions are already high.

He sits back at the batcomputer, neck prickling. He is no stranger to sleep-deprivation, how it can play tricks on your mind at even minor levels. But he’d been so _certain_ of Dick’s presence, the atmosphere changing as someone stood behind him.

The cave feeds play back. He studies them, up unto the point his own figure turns. There’s absolutely no movement anywhere else in the cave. The tape doesn’t even flicker.

Bruce sighs, rubbing his eyes. He plays it again, for good measure, leaning closer. He idly combs through the Manor feeds, the study camera catching Dick exit the cave, a visual of Tim meandering down a hall with a tablet in hand, nearly running into the wall as he turns a corner. Bruce flips back to the cave panel, scanning all the entrances. Then reviewing the platform video, just to be sure. 

Nothing.

Bruce sighs again. Perhaps...he should sleep sooner, rather than later. He glances over his shoulder once more, listening, looking out into the unmoving dark. Then back to the computer.

He can rest once this is done.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen,,, halloween isn't over til I say it's over. 
> 
> shoutout to everyone who left such enthusiastic comments! you are all wonderful, and I appreciate it. please enjoy :)

The movie was nice. The popcorn was nice. Watching his siblings, plus Stephanie, sit in relative peace and silence was nice.

Getting a text from an unknown number to _‘look behind u’_ and turning to find Jason smirking at them from the row behind them was nice, even if he did take the opportunity to occasionally throw pieces of popcorn at them.

Hearing Damian critique the art to an attentive Duke was nice. Watching Cass explain the surprising accuracy of the body language of the animated characters was nice.

It was, all in all, a very nice outing.

And yet Dick, checking his escrimas in the batcave almost seven hours after the credits roll, still hasn’t shaken the sensation of something smoldering in his chest.

He glances up, at everyone’s varying states of readiness. The mood of the room is odd, half-strung-tight with anticipation, half-broken into the quiet teams they’ve split into.

Cass is sitting on the table next to him, dressed in her under armor and silently lacing up her hands.Dick is nowhere near her level of reading it, but there’s something in her posture that’s setting him on edge. She may as well be thinking the same thing about him, with the glances he’s been getting out of the corner of her eye.

“You and Spoiler will take the southside bridge until further notice,” Bruce—Batman is saying to Tim from across the room. He’s yet to pull on the cowl and cape, but his voice is already pitched low and serious. “Crane has people stationed there. They’re planning to blockade, and kidnap civilians from the stalled cars.”

“Human experimentation?” Tim asks, fastening his bo staff to his belt. “Or hostages?”

“Likely both,” Bruce responds, voice grim. “Once Signal and Red Hood are done with their surveillance, they’ll be joining you in the scenario the kidnappers split up. Signal—

“Meeting Jay at Cross Gardens,” Duke nods, tapping on the screen in his armor’s wrist. “He said he’s already there. Okay if I head out, since I have farthest to go?”

Batman nods, and looks to Steph and Tim.

“You should go too. Crane is eager. His timeline may accelerate. If he knows you’re in the area he may be at least less bold, but he won’t cancel his plans.”

“At least somebody won’t,” Stephanie mutters, and Tim swats her arm as she turns to the garage. “What?”

“We’ll check in with Oracle once we’re there,” Tim nods, pulling up his cowl and nodding at Bruce. “...Good luck, Bruce.”

Bruce only nods in return, but stares after them several seconds after the three of them vanish into the garage.

Dick tightens his jaw when Bruce’s gaze falls on Damian, who’s been silently sharpening a batarang. He’s still wearing a sweatshirt over the Robin tunic, his hood pulled up and his cape is folded neatly next to him. The R badge shines from on top of it, next to his domino.

“Robin.”

Damian straightens immediately.

“You and I will be securing Crane’s stash of toxin. He’s been keeping it in a mobile container, and will likely rendez-vous—”

Dick stops listening, swiveling to face the edge of the cave. He tilts his head at Cass.

“Did you hear that?”

She nods in his periphery, having gone equally still.

“—backup if necessary. Nightwing.”

Dick doesn’t turn around, squinting into the dark. Cass shifts.

“ _Nightwing_.”

“One second, Bruce,” Dick grouses, rounding the table and shedding his gloves. “If the cat got into Batcow’s pen again—”

“Grayson, what are you—”

He’s just skirting the edge of the workbenches when the lights flicker, going completely out for almost an entire second. He glances back.

“Um.”

Bruce is already in motion, headed for the computer. Damian and Cass have both slid from their tables, gravitating towards each other and assuming defensive stances, back to back.

Dick looks back into the dark, before retreating, joining them in their formation. Maybe a bit of an overreaction, but the last time they had an issue with the lights in the cave had ended with one of them nearly getting shot by the Joker, so better safe than sorry.

They flicker again, the bulbs buzzing erratically.

“Grayson, if this is a part of your _ridiculous_ haunting campaign—”

“What?” He can feel Cass studying him and huffs, exasperated. “Dames, we are _just_ about to leave. I wouldn’t even think about starting something like that now.”

“Hardly a _start,_ ” Damian scoffs.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t—

“Power surge,” Bruce breaks in, voice echoey from his place at the computer. There are surveillance feeds of the Manor crawling across the screen, Bruce flicking through visuals. “Undetermined source. I can’t be sure if it’s artificial. There’s a chance—”

That’s when the cave goes dark.

Dick reaches for the nightvision domino he’d tucked into his under armor pocket, listening to Cass and Damian’s steadied breathing from either side of him. He frowns, patting the pocket. The mask is gone.

There’s a scrape in the dark.

Dick brings his fists up just in time to be shoved to the side. Something big. Something _strong_.

A scuffle, a shout of pain. The lights return with a bang.

Cass is wide-eyed in front of him, and he matches her as they stare all around them, the apparently empty cave. Bruce is standing at the top of the platform, scanning the room.

Damian—

“Damian,” Dick inhales sharply, reaching immediately to where Damian is clutching his shoulder, the grey sweatshirt darkening rapidly around where the batarang is buried in the fabric. “Shit, is it—”

“It’s shallow,” Damian pants, shoving Dick’s hand away. “I’ve had far worse.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dick says, dousing the little spark of pain in his chest at the truth of Damian’s words. He crouches, pulling the sweatshirt fabric taut. Damian hisses as Dick realizes. “Did it go through the Robin armor?”

Bruce’s face is blank and imperious as he appears next to them, inspecting Damian’s shoulder. He looks up at them, expression unreadable.

“Which of you had the batarang?”

Cass makes an affronted sound as the smouldering in Dick’s chest flickers to life. Dick straightens, not letting go of Damian.

“Bruce, we _know_ not to attack blindly with allies nearby,” he says, voice sharp. “It wasn’t us.”

“He certainly didn’t stab himself,” Bruce says severely, hands already smearing with Damian’s blood. There’s a twitch of fear in his expression that Dick barely catches, that cuts through some of the heat blossoming in his chest. “If this is how you’re conducting yourself in a panic, I don’t see how tonight—”

“A _panic?_ ”

“I had the batarang, Father.” Damian is staring at the floor. He winces, lifting the bleeding shoulder. “It was—I must have lost my grip on it.”

“And it happened to fall into your shoulder and pierce an entire layer of body armor.” Bruce is glaring now, between Cass and Dick. Cass is biting her lip, expression more hurt than anything, and Dick steps forward.

“Bruce, I get you’re on edge, but you can’t just throw around accusations—” Dick cuts himself off, freezing. A scrape. He looks around, suddenly very aware of the silence of the cave. “There’s...something else.”

“Listen,” Cass’s voice is hushed, even. Her eyes turn on Dick, dark and cutting and wary.

Footsteps.

“There,” Dick says, turning to the stairs. “It’s...going up to the Manor.”

The lights flicker again. The footsteps vanish.

There’s a beat of silence.

“Robin, radio the others.” Bruce is shedding some of his heavier outer armor, eyes not leaving the stairs. “Inform them we have an intruder that needs to be dealt with. Potentially meta. Securing the perimeter.”

“Robin, stand _still_ so I can take that out and put a bandage on it,” Dick grits out. Damian glares, shooting a look at Bruce as he makes for the computer once more, but doesn’t move. “Cass?”

“Radios,” she nods, snatching a comm from her where her uniform is draped on the table and tapping it. “Oracle.” She speaks quietly into the comm, positioning herself at the left foot of the dinosaur—Dick can’t be sure if it’s unconscious or not, since that’s one of the most defensible positions in the entire batcave.

He leads Damian to the edge of the worktable, grabbing gauze. He braces Damian’s shoulder, furrowing his brow at the positioning. There’s a lot of blood, but Damian would be able to tell if it had hit anything more than a few surface level veins.

He reaches for the disinfectant, his gaze passing over Bruce on the platform. Dick works his jaw, torn. That note in his voice, the sudden twitch in his jaw as he’d caught sigh of the batarang glinting and surrounded by bloody fabric.

There’s...a world of difference between rationally knowing Bruce is terrified of them getting hurt, and seeing it. And as much as Dick wants to grab his shoulders and _shake_ him right now, the reminder helps. Bruce is already tense from Halloween; the exacerbation of an injury so early in the night, from such an unknown...

Dick takes in a breath. _He's worried._ That's it. Dick shouldn't be surprised at this song and dance, because he knows it by heart. 

“Are you going to address this or shall I do it myself?” Damian interrupts his train of thought through gritted teeth, gesturing to his shoulder.

“I got it, I got it, just hold—” Dick yanks the batarang out as quickly as possible, that little ache in his chest returning as Damian doesn’t even flinch. He has had worse. “Hold the sweatshirt back so I can bandage it. There should be enough room to move the tunic without cutting it open.”

A few minutes pass in silence, Cass’ quiet voice barely audible over Bruce’s frantic typing. It’s quiet enough that they all freeze when they hear it.

The unmistakable sound of the grandfather clock sliding open.

“They’re in the Manor,” Bruce says, and Dick is already sprinting after him. The air normally warms in the ascent from the cave, but it remains sharp and chilly even as he reaches the top. He catches up at the study, stopping on a dime as Bruce halts in the doorway.

“B,” he pants, frowning around at the dark room. The only light is a sliver of moon, peeking through the curtains. “Did you see anything?”

“We need to secure the Manor. Close the—” Bruce says, and then they both freeze, the faint scuff of rapid footsteps coming from behind them, echoing up the stairs from the cave. They move into position, as slightly labored breathing nears to door—

“Damian!” Dick exhales, dropping from his stance. “What are you doing, you should have stayed with—”

“Cassandra,” Bruce says, as another shadow slips out from the gaping darkness of the cave doorway. She nods at them, the motion barely visible.

“You didn’t explicitly state that,” Damian sniffs, though he’s a little too shaky-looking for Dick’s taste. The bloodstain is prominent against the pale fabric, even in the dark. “And it’s better to pair off, if there’s an intruder.”

“Watch each other’s back,” Cass puts in, eyes glinting in the faint moonlight. “I think—”

They all fall silent, turning to stare at the open study door. The hall is shrouded, the very end so dark it’s like staring into a deep, black well.

Something is dragging down the hall.

Dragging, then stopping with a _thump_. Drag. _Thump_. Drag.

“Are zombies on the Halloween menu this year?” Dick whispers, putting an arm in front of Damian that he swats down. “Or maybe Jacob Marley, or—Damian, what are you doing?”

Damian has dropped down into a crouch next to the bookshelf, and as Dick watches he slides out a long, glinting shape.

“I read today that spirits can be defeated with iron,” he says grimly, holding up the katana and Dick should have _known_ that Damian would have immediately run with this. He glances up at them. “If you would allow me, this blade could —”

“The Manor isn’t _haunted_ ,” Bruce responds firmly. He’s more of a silhouette at this point, the moonlight fading. “I don’t know who this is, but there’s a strong possibility they do have meta abilities. I...have reason to believe they were in the cave, earlier. But they don’t show up on footage.”

A strange thought twists through Dick’s mind.

“None of you know any reason there might have been a bunch of fabric stuffed in a vent, do you?” he asks. Maybe it's a long shot. Maybe it's paranoia. But he's been trained not to let the little things go. “Tim didn’t have a science project, maybe?”

He’s met with silence and a steady sinking in his stomach. Cass’s hand lands on his arm.

“The mirror,” she says, biting her lip. “You didn’t...um. Tamper?”

His stomach reaches his toes.

“What mirror?”

She stares, a shred of moonlight falling across her face. 

Dick swears.

“Close the cave door.” Bruce’s voice is stone. “Dick. Now.”

“What? Why?” He trades a look with Cass—though her face has fallen back into shadow, so he can’t be sure if it was matched. “We can’t cut ourselves off, our advantage might be with surveillance from the Cave.”

“We need to contain whoever it is to the house,” Bruce says with a grimace. “Lockdown on the Manor only works if the batcave is sealed off as well. I’ve activated it already, the door just needs to be closed.”

“Seems like a design flaw, but okay,” Dick sighs. He reaches out for Damian, who’s been awfully silent even with the iron sword held evenly in his hand. The line between his eyebrows is prominent, mouth tucked in a way that Dick knows means _pain_. An idea stirs. “Damian, go back downstairs. Cass has a comm, you can be our surveillance while we do a sweep.”

Dick holds out hope for about two seconds that Damian will go quietly. The hope is vanquished with the tightening of Damian’s grip on the katana.

“I’m staying.”

“You’re injured.”

“I’m _Robin_ ,” Damian retorts, drawing himself up. “I should stay with Batman.”

For a moment, Dick is taken aback at the sheer ferocity in his tone, excessive even for Damian. But Damian isn’t even looking at Dick; he’s looking at Bruce with what could be a glare, but what strikes Dick as something far more desperate. Cass must see it too, because she steps forward, hands in motion.

“Not about that,” is all she says. Damian looks between her and Bruce. Bruce, who doesn’t even look back. He’s still staring intently down the hall, though no matter how hard he tries Dick can’t make out anything in the dimness.

“But—”

“We don’t have time for this,” Bruce growls. “Damian, downstairs. Dick, Cassandra, we need to—”

There’s a loud, horrid scrape of wood, and they all whirl at the same time, Dick minding the katana as Damian swings around. He blinks rapidly, trying to make out anything in the near-darkness. 

A glint of glass. The grandfather clock ticks calmly from its place, face impassive.

Now standing in front of the closed cave door. 

“Okay then,” Dick says, wishing desperately he hadn’t left his escrimas down there. The room seems colder, all of a sudden. “I guess that decision was made for us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for taking the time to read. :) friendly reminder that I do exist [on tumblr](https://prismatic-et-al.tumblr.com) and am much less shy about chatting there - responding to comments makes me quite nervous most of the time, but I do read every one, and they mean a lot! 
> 
> take care, and stay tuned.


	6. Chapter 6

_11:48 PM_

_October 31_

The soft, invariable tick of the clock quickly becomes menacing as the four of them draw together, the sound jarring in the sudden hush of the room. The lights had flickered on just once more, blinding, before cutting completely and leaving them in the chilly moonlit dark.

“What’s our play?” Dick whispers—there’s no certain reason for it, but speaking too loud suddenly seems like an invitation. Like drawing attention.

“We still sweep the house,” Bruce responds, voice pitched low. “We don’t know enough about whoever this is to strategize a trap. We figure out who this is, what they want, and how much they know. Cassandra.”

Cass tilts her head, a line of moonlight cutting across her cheek.

“What did you see earlier?”

“Figure,” she replies quietly. “Standing. In the bathroom mirror. Thought it was fake.”

There’s a shuddering, metallic scrape from somewhere in the hall, and they all simultaneously shift formation to guard an attack from the door. Dick would love to make a joke about family bonding, but in his experience phantom people standing in mirrors is the wrong genre for that.

“Any more details.” Bruce’s voice is even quieter, a low note strung tight. “Height. Appearance.”

Cass just shakes her head, the motion barely visible.

“Too quick. Person-shaped.”

Bruce grunts.

“Dick.”

“I found a bunch of fabric stuffed in the hallway vent at around 10 this morning,” he reports, squinting at the dark space beneath the desk. The light from the window shifts, and he relaxes slightly when the shape—the one that definitely could have been a crouching child, not that he had jumped to that conclusion—turns into a wastebasket. “Soaked through, my guess was condensation. So it could have been there for a while.”

“Fabric?”

Dick’s eyes jump to another oddly shaped shadow sitting in the corner of the room.

“Ribbons, sort of,” he clarifies, really wishing he had any kind of weapon in his hands. He shifts closer in front of Damian, who is pressing a hand to his injured shoulder, face in shadow. “Like...wrappings. We’ve done mummies before, haven’t we? Should be a cakewalk.”

Bruce makes a noise, half turning to Damian. The shadow in the corner of the room hasn’t moved, and Dick has half a mind to throw something at it when the light strengthens again; it’s an umbrella stand. Dick exhales, scanning the rest of the room. Nothing like a good, Halloween ambience to make everything seem twice as threatening.

This...stillness, isn’t helping shake the impression that they’re being watched.

“Damian.” Bruce rumbles. “Observations.”

“Knocking on doors and other disturbances throughout the day,” Damian recites in a tempered whisper, and Dick chances a glance down. His tone sounds like he’s trying very hard to keep his voice steady. The sword glints in the low light, but Dick can’t quite see his expression in the dark. “I assumed it was Drake, Grayson, and Brown, but now I am...less certain. I—”

There’s a sharp creak at the doorway. Dick holds his breath, listening.

“Alright,” Bruce says finally, after several seconds of silence. “Dick, with Cassandra. Sweep the east wing up to the foyer. Damian, we take the west. Lose each other, meet at the front door. Understood?”

“Aye-aye,” Dick mutters, padding his pocket once more for the domino. He could have _sworn_ it had been there, and he’s not sure how to feel about whether it might have been...taken. “Lights, B. If they—or it—can see in the dark, our playing field isn’t even.”

“It's supposed to become cloudy later in the night,” Damian adds. "We will not have moonlight forever." 

Bruce makes a noise.

“Breakers, east wing,” Cassandra puts in quietly. She elbows Dick. “We can.”

Dick barely catches Bruce’s nod in the dark.

“Until then, travel near windows,” Bruce agrees. “Cassandra, you had a comm.”

“Shorted.”

Dick sighs out a swear. Of course.

“Pennyworth keeps spare flashlights in the emergency kits,” Damian says, turning his head enough so moonlight glances off his face. His brow is furrowed tightly, lips pursed. “The nearest one would be the kitchen, but—”

They all freeze at the sudden, unmistakable sound of uneven footsteps treading down the hall.

“Pursue,” Bruce snaps, moving towards the door. They follow, spilling into the hall and freezing there as one; it’s much, much darker than the study. The footsteps stop abruptly.

“I don’t like this,” Dick whispers, widening his eyes to adjust them. The hall remains stubbornly dark. “No visual, no comms? It’s a little too inconvenient to be coincidence.”

“Feels wrong,” Cass agrees lowly. “Feels…waiting.”

Bruce says nothing, the turn of his head barely visible in the dark.

“Towards the parlor room,” is all he says, gazing down the passage to the right. There’s a faint cut of light at the end, shading the hall more gray than anything, but then it winds out of sight.

Dick...thinks he’s probably going to propose some architectural downsizing to Bruce after this.

Then the footsteps are _pounding_ across the floor, sprinting away from them.

Bruce doesn’t even say anything, just takes off into the dark with the three of them hot on his heels. Cass is behind him, noiseless and likely tuning every one of her senses to an attack from the back—it gives Dick the chance to keep an eye on Damian in the vague light, the way he grabs his shoulder with his free hand as they sprint towards the window at the bend.

Bruce slams to a halt at the turn in the passage, moonlight pooling around them. He tilts his head and Dick does the same, grabbing Damian’s shoulder to stop him from plunging forward into the dark.

The footsteps are gone. The Manor is quiet. Bruce turns his eyes on Dick as he crouches at a protesting Damian’s shoulder, pulling the blood-damp fabric tight again.

“Where is Cassandra.”

"She's—" Dick looks up. Then back. “She was right behind me.”

He stands, releasing Damian. Something pulls at his chest as he stares into the empty, greyed-out hall. She—she’d been right behind him, he was sure.

“Cass?”

“Cain?” Damian’s voice is small in the dark, and that something in Dick’s chest pulls again. “Cain, stop being ridiculous.”

“She was right behind me,” Dick says again, pacing towards the dark and stopping at the edge of moonlight. “Cass? Cass, we’re right—”

_“You.”_

The words is so quiet, he might have missed it. He turns, the open door to the parlor next to him suddenly wider and hungrier than before. The room inside, he knows, is windowless, a hall leading out to the other side.

“Cass?”

“You said she was right behind you,” Bruce’s voice cuts through him.

“She was, I don’t—”

_“Here.”_

They all peer into the parlor doorway.

“Cass?” Dick whispers. He isn’t an avid fan of horror movies, but he knows enough about regular strategy to understand that walking into a room with zero visibility is a worse than bad idea. “Cass, wanna come out into the hall?”

“Perhaps she’s injured.” Damian sounds tenser than before, and Dick rests a hand on his shoulder. The fabric is still sticky. “Perhaps—”

 _“Help.”_ The word is a choked rasp. _"Help."_

Bruce is already sweeping past Dick into the room.

“Cassandra?” he says, just a dark shape in the light spilling in from the hall. “Cassandra, report.”

Dick props open the door, trying to let as much light in as possible. The room is still all uncomfortably-shaped shadows, the kind that move when you do.

The air is scaldingly cold, now.

“Cass?” he whispers, hand loosening on the door. There’s something behind the sofa. He steps forward, hands coming up defensively. Damian, at his side, raises his sword. “Cass, is that—”

There’s a sharp _bang_ , and for a second Dick thinks he’s been hit—his vision darks out completely, and for one disorienting moment the room feels flipped. He reaches out, hand landing on something that jerks away from him with a sound of protest.

“It’s me!” he says, holding tighter. “It’s just me. The door closed.”

“Richard?” Damian says, his small hand landing on his own. “Did you—”

“Follow my voice,” Bruce’s voice is a steady growl. “Center of the room. Mind the rug.”

“B,” Dick says evenly, controlling the feeling in his chest as he takes unseeings steps towards where Bruce had been standing. A warm hand lands on his arm, and he stops himself from lashing out when he recognizes Bruce’s breathing. “I don’t think she’s in here. I think….”

He snaps his head towards the sound of a shuffling near the wall. Someone...some _thing’s_ gaze is weighing on his skin.

“I think we just got played.”

“Then where did she _go_ ,” Bruce growls, tone deepening though the pressure on Dick’s arm remains even. “If she was behind you—”

“Let’s talk about this when we aren’t sitting ducks,” Dick whispers back, even as his mind rewinds to where he could have grabbed Cass, where _he_ could have been the one watching their back. “I don’t _know_ where she went, but you said we should meet at the front door when we get split up, so let’s go there.”

He can feel Bruce's _you-should-have_ glower through the dark, piling onto the uneasiness already picking at his chest. 

She had been _right_ behind him.

"Fine." 

“The spirit has already proven itself capable of tangible actions,” Damian mutters. “Which stands to reason we can subdue it in return. If we wait until it attacks, we can force it to tell us where she went.”

“The Manor isn’t haunted,” Bruce says for the second time. He sounds almost irritable about it. And it _would_ be funny.

It would be.

And then, too quickly, Bruce is gone too, and it’s very much not funny at all.

* * *

_12:03 AM_

_November 1_

They sprint from the room blindly, Dick nearly dragging Damian as the sound of footsteps quickens behind them—the back hall from the parlor is _much_ darker than the front had been, the shadow of the stairs running next to them like a curtain.

Spatially, he knows where the hall ends, that there’s a turn ahead, that there should be some light where they can turn and face...it. Whatever it is. Dick is almost certain it’s not human at this point.

Humans don’t behave this way—like spiders. The waiting, the watching, the apparent singular desire to catch them. Humans don’t change the air they breathe. Humans don’t de- and rematerialize.

But every step they take it just feels like he’s leaving Bruce and Cass behind. He grip tightens on Damian, chest pulling harder even as his heart pounds.

“Ri—Nightwing,” Damian hisses, pulling Dick to a halt as they reach the turn. “Listen.”

No more footsteps. No more words. The Manor might as well be empty.

Dick exhales.

“Here,” he whispers, pulling Damian to the turn in the hall. “There’s more light.”

The east hall is full of uncertain shadows, walls shaded gray in the faint moonlight. It’s not enough; Dick can barely see the end of the hall. If they can find a window—the library. The library is the most well-lit room in the Manor, and even if the lockdown won’t let them open the windows, they can regroup there.

“Library,” he whispers, feeling Damian pull to a stop behind him. He squints down, unable to make out anything other than a vague shape in the dark, that could easily be a trick of the light. He squints. “We can take this hall, and cut through the foyer. There’s a chance they could still meet us there, at the front door.”

“There are spare communicators as well as flashlights in all of the emergency kits,” Damian responds quietly. His finger taps idly against where it’s gripping Dick’s arm. “And surely we can locate a cellphone someone left lying around.”

“Good point.” Dick presses his eyes shut, trying not to think where Cass and Bruce could possibly have been taken. Taken, or… “Ok, let's go." 

Damian’s head tilts in the dark as they creep forward, painfully slow.

“Why are we not choosing the panic room?" he asks. "It’s secure. We can contact the others there, and have Gordon to overrule the lockdown and remotely reset the breakers.”

“Because if it turns out this thing can go through walls, I don’t want us getting trapped in there with it,” Dick mutters. He works his jaw, glancing back down the hall. “Cutting through the foyer’s still our best bet. The windows there will help.” He pauses, listening. His eyes shift to Damian’s faint shape next to him, the glint of the sword still held forth. “Why did you say it’s tied to the house?”

Damian shrugs a little.

“Spirits are often tied to a location. And as I said to Father, there have been...occurrences all day, none of which followed us to the theater. I thought it was a part of your inane pranking.” There’s a shift, and Dick can picture Damian squinting up at him. “It _isn’t,_ correct? Because Father and Cain—”

Dick almost laughs, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Dames, I would love nothing more than for this to be a mean, crappy, elaborate joke.”

A very, _unbelievably_ crappy joke—one that the perpetrator of which Dick is going to call Alfred in on for a thorough scolding, because this stopped being funny sometime around when Dick saw that batarang sticking out of Damian’s shoulder.

Cass. Bruce. The footsteps. The waiting. The stillness.

He can’t help but think that this thing, it’s….it’s _hunting_ them.

But Damian is still doing that controlled tone of his, and Dick can’t afford to show just how much he wants to start tearing the house down looking for them, ghost-mummy-meta be damned.

What he _can_ do, is not lose Damian, too.

“Doubtful,” Damian is saying primly. “Not even Drake could set up something this...realistic.”

“I dunno, there’s a chance Cass could pull it off. “ Dick says, trying to keep his whispering conversational as he squints down the dim hall. “You know what they say, it’s always—”

Damian protests as Dick yanks them to a sudden halt.

“What?” Damian whispers, raising his sword. “What is it?”

Dick blinks again, staring hard at what he could have sworn was a shape at the end of the shadowy hall.

“Do you see…” He inhales sharply. There’s definitely a shape. A figure. Indistinct, standing in the shadows.

As Dick stares, it moves.

“Ok,” Dick breathes, quiet as he can. He doesn’t take his eyes off it, as the silhouette of its head tilts, the shadow turning gray as it takes a step towards the moonlight swaying in through the windows. “Ok. Change of plans. East hallway to the living room, and we light the fireplace. Then—”

The shadow moves again. And again. And then the shadow is gone, but there are footsteps rushing down the hall towards them.

“Go. _Go!_ ” He turns Damian, shoving them the way they came as footsteps pound behind them. They sprint through the pale-lit hall, Dick seizing Damian by the hood and pulling him down the service passage—it’s dark, much darker than Dick expected, but he doesn’t stop.

The air changes again as they reach what must be the end of the hall, the world somehow even darker than before. Dick slams the door shut, panting and listening.

“This should be servants’ quarters,” Damian says in one shaky breath. “Pennyworth’s office has flashlights, and potentially a communicator.”

“Then we need to get to the breakers,” Dick nods. “This thing keeps to the shadows. That might be our advantage. Maybe it can’t handle too much light.”

He presses his ear against the door, straining. Damian is silent in the dark next to him.

“I don’t hear anything,” he says. “But it keeps reappearing. Are you sure there are flashlights in his office?”

Dick pauses, waiting. The air has gone cold.

“Damian?”

Damian says nothing. Dick takes in a breath, turning.

_No, no._

“Damian, answer me.”

He reaches out, hands scrabbling against the wall. Something has a tight grip around his heart, tugging it from his chest with even more determination than before.

“Damian!”

Too late not to use his name. Too late, too little, and Dick’s still reaching into empty space. The air has turned to ice on his skin.

 _“Damian!_ ” he shouts, bracing a hand against the wall—if that thing finds him, fine. Seconds are passing too quickly, his heart being tugged further and further from his chest with every beat, and Damian is gone. Cass, and Bruce, and Damian. Gone.

“Damian!” he shouts again, voice reverberating in his ears. He presses his eyes closed, thinking. “If you can hear me, find a place to hide! Go to—go to the place where Lulu and Zeb used to live! I’ll come get you, I promise!”

The words are immediately swallowed up by the dark, and Dick takes in a shaking breath. No response. Nothing.

It’s like he’s alone in the house.

Dick grits his teeth, hand curling into a fist even as his chest gives another awful tug. Damian. He’s lost _Damian_.

He’s _lost_ Damian.

“Whoever’s there, you might as well come out and face me!” he shouts to the dark, throat burning. “No need for games, it’s just me now!”

The resounding silence is mocking. Dick grits his jaw, feeling along the wall. If it finds him, fine. Because that means he’ll find _it._

Damian was right, about the flashlight in Alfred’s office. It flickers a bit when he turns it on, and he shakes it, steadying his breathing.

In the hall again, he looks both ways. The beam of light casts even more distorted shadows than before, but nothing moves.

“Okay,” he mutters to himself, tearing his eyes from the closed door. “C’mon.”

If he gets to a phone, or a comm, he can ask Babs to run surveillance—there’s the _slim_ chance this thing had just separated them, that they’re each wandering around in the dark alone. Not _likely_ , but possible.

The other possibility….

Dick needs to get in touch with someone outside. He has no idea what Cass told Babs, but the others need to know what’s going on.

They need to know before they come back to a house where they’ll be picked off one by one.

He’s reached the end of the servant’s hall when there’s an audible footfall behind him. He stills, casting the flashlight behind him. The passage is empty.

“Damian?” He twitches the light to the side, dropping into a defensive stance. “Dames?”

The beam flashes starkly across a broad, ragged shoulder, and Dick has enough time to think _not Bruce_ before he takes off in the opposite direction.

He could _try_ to fight it, but if _Cass_ was taken—he needs backup. He needs to be alive to find them. The rest of them need to be warned.

He skids around the side of the front staircase, light flashing wildly.

 _“Catch you,”_ something is wheezing behind him, much closer than should be possible, the air nearly arctic. _“I’m—”_

It catches him at the threshold of the ballroom.

Something catches at his legs, and he just manages to trip into a blind roll, coming upright and staring sightlessly around him. His blood pounds in his ears, the roar of it blotting out whatever noise the thing might have made.

Then there are arms around him, and he _burns_ ; every cell of skin is being picked at with metal tines, torn in two with tweezers. With a strangled shout he twists as best he can. The thing attacking him doesn’t let up even as he slams it into the narrow wall.

There are freezing-burning fingers clawing at his neck, scraping gulleys down his arms. Every new touch slices through him, the memory of every old pain sharpened and reimagined and given free reign.

For a fraction of a second, air goes thin in his lungs.

Then the arms are gone, and Dick is sagging against the wall, wheezing. He’s glad, in a dizzy way, that the lights are out. He doesn’t want to see whatever it just did to him. If his neck, his arms, are warped with burns and blood as much as it feels like they are.

He doesn’t have time to wonder where it went. The flashlight was sent flying, and he can see it’s beam angled at the wall, just a few steps away. Steps, well, a few drags as he pulls himself up, trying to get his feet beneath him enough to stagger towards it.

 _Get up._ He grits his teeth, hissing as he stumbles and falls, fumbling the flashlight. He sits there, egging himself to get back up. Damian is lost, somewhere. Bruce. Cass. The others, they don’t know a thing if they open the door to the Manor. _Get up._

Something moves into his dimming line of vision. He cranes his neck up, the movement a dull agony. The light beams upward, casting the shadow before him into stark detail.

Dick stares.

“No,” he breathes, head spinning. The face is distorted, the pain blurring his vision. But it’s unmistakable. Undeniable. The flashlight flickers out. But Dick knows what he saw. “You—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> take care of yourself, and stay tuned.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to everyone screaming at me in the comments about the cliffhanger :) I adore you, I’m not sorry, it will happen again.

_11:53 PM_

_October 31_

* * *

Cassandra is barely a half-step sprinting behind Dick when she hears it.

_“Help.”_

She stops short, spinning in the dark. Dick, Damian, and Bruce silently speed on ahead of her, but the word had been unmistakeable, begging. Urgent.

_“Help.”_

Cass ducks forward, reaching out to guide her way through the doorway—a spare office, she knows, one with curtains barely muffling the light of the tiny window arcing over the desk.

She scans the room, one hand in the doorway. The others will be waiting. Missing her. Thinking she’s been...

This feels like a trick.

Cass turns just in time to snap her hand back out of the way of the slamming door. There’s another slam, second later that’s muffled and distant.

She stares at the door, fists raised and legs bent. The room around her is quiet, soft.

Empty.

She grabs the handle and pulls experimentally. All of the doors in the Manor lock from both sides, a measure Bruce installed in case they need to contain something in a room. Well.

Grumbling under her breath, Cass crouches, extracting a pick from her under armor sleeve and eventually easing the door open.

The hall is equally silent.

Until it’s not.

There’s a sudden burst of running feet, muffled and distant and leaving. Cass heads for the faint pool of moonlight at the end of the hall, where the sound...might be coming from. The Manor echoes.

By the time she reaches the window next to the parlor door, the sound has faded.

“Hello?” she whispers, tentative, tense. She eyes the paneling on the parlor door. “Bruce?”

 _Split up, meet at the front door._ But. Cass bites her lip, looking over her shoulder at the shadowy hall.

There's a creak.

She spins, elbow flying in a neat arc that nearly collides before she reacts and pulls it back, adrenaline singing through her.

“Cassandra,” Bruce pants, hands up, eyes wide, shoulders tight, arm held stiff, something wrong something _wrong_ — “Cassandra, are you alright.”

_(fearpainuncertaintypainfearfearfear)_

She grabs his arm, as if that will stop the flood of emotions nearly overwhelming her in the low light. Bruce is usually careful in how he holds himself, because he knows she can see.

“Others?” she says, for lack of other words. She could say _whoever is in the Manor is a liar._ She could say _we need light._ She could say _something is wrong._

But Bruce….she takes in the emotion of his lowering arms. Bruce is aware of these things.

“I don’t know,” Bruce grits out, posture screaming. He shrugs his shoulder, and Cass spots the ugly burn on his forearm. “Something grabbed me. They vanished. I don’t think whoever it was was strong enough to hold on, and it sounded like it fled through the back hall. I heard you.” He catches her eye, hand twitching up like it’s about to rest on her shoulder, but _(fear concern love worry fear)_ “We didn’t know where you went.”

“Heard a call for help.” She shrugs, frowning. “They...or it. Locked me in.”

“Don’t,” Bruce says, expression hard. ”Don’t go off alone again.” His tone is just as severe, but worry, not anger, is pouring from his shoulders. Fear, not disappointment.

Still...she should have known better. Been better. She flexes her hand.

“Teleport?” Cass wonders aloud. She bites her lip. “Ghost?”

Bruce’s arm twitches in the movement she knows as a precursor to him pinching the bridge of his nose.

“If this does turn out to be a ghost, I am going to be having a _talk_ with John Constantine about the quality of his sigiling,” Bruce grounds out, anger flashing across his back. “Anything truly supernatural, for that matter. Teleportation might make sense.”

That’s when they hear the yell. The word is too muffled to hear. The pitch is not.

“Dick,” they say at the same time, turning simultaneously. There’s another one. It sounds like a word.

Too many syllables to be _help_.

“Kitchen near the servant’s quarters,” Bruce snaps, and they take off. Cassandra sticks closer this time, sending a glance behind them but not letting a step pass between them.

Another yell sounds off, still too muffled to hear through the wall, but longer. Speaking?

The shadows around them get darker until they reach the east living room, which is full of strange white angles of moonlight. Cassandra stops precisely next to Bruce as he pauses in the doorway. The shouting is gone.

 _“Need flashlights.”_ Bruce signs, face and hands stilted with restrained alarm. Cass nods, breathing quietly as they maneuver around the furniture in sync. They pause simultaneously at the doorway, scanning the room behind them and into the hall to the kitchen.

 _“Empty,”_ she signs, shaking her head. She feels something in her throat building, and turns it into the word. “Empty.”

Bruce just nods as they duck into the room. He heads straight for the emergency kit panel, motioning her to watch his back.

Cass’s heart pounds as her eyes travel over the empty kitchen, the crystal bowl twinkling on the otherwise empty table. Shadows on the counter. Echoes down the hall. No one in the room.

If she hadn’t stopped. If she’d stayed with them. Missed steps, every one that had taken her towards that fake plea for help. She should have known. She’s supposed to be….better.

“Sorry,” she says quietly. Bruce half-turns, one hand still on the keypad for the emergency kit panel. His body is half in shadow, just barely telegraphing confusion.

“Making you….” She wants to say _scared_. She wants to say _get separated from the others_. But. “Think I was lost.”

Something unnameable, something almost pained, shifts over Bruce’s shoulder.

“Cassandra, I—”

A definite, agonized shout rips through the air.

Bruce rips the emergency kit from a panel in the wall, even as Cassandra looks from doorway to doorway, clenching her fist.

“Bruce,” she says. Her eyes are on the pitch-black doorway to the main ballroom. “Bruce.”

There’s a series of thuds, the rattle of something being thrown across the floor. Cass knows what a struggle sounds like.

Bruce is growling, rifling through the emergency bag. She looks back into the doorway, the one to the main hall, the ballroom.

Cass sprints into the dark.

“Cassandra!”

She reaches the end of the hall, turning slightly with spatial memory and barely skimming her hand across the wall until light greets her. Not moonlight. Artificial. Flashing. 

There’s a crumpled body that throws up hulking shadows across the wall in time with the frantically-flickering flashlight strewn next to it.

She slows. Breathes. Tests the air.

The body isn’t moving, and Cass can’t move her feet.

She needs to get closer. Check breathing. Do the things that need doing.

_Be better. Don’t hesitate. Just do._

But. The body is still. And she’d been the one to split up the group.

There’s a smear of blood on the wall, glittering with each flicker of the flashlight.

She manages a step forward.

“Cassandra!” a voice hisses, and her own shadow is doubled on the wall. When she turns for a split second there’s another shape behind Bruce’s approaching shadow. He beams the flashlight down, over the body.

“Dick,” he says, glancing at her with clear confusion written over the alarm as he doesn’t even pause, goes straight to the form. He kneels, pressing a hand to his neck. Cassandra approaches slower. Breathe. Focus. Bruce’s posture loosens considerably. “He’s alive.”

Steady. Breathe.

“Injured,” she says quietly, gesturing up at the wall. She picks up the flashlight, smacking it against her hand and turning to survey the dark. “Or he injured them.”

Bruce carefully rolls Dick over, and they both take in a sharp breath.

“These need treatment,” Bruce says, hand gliding over the burns coloring up Dick’s arms, a searing mark curving around the base of his neck. He grits his teeth as he turns over his own arm, revealing his own ugly blister. Cass frowns at the pain tugging at the motion. “Where I was grabbed, it looks the same. It’s no small wonder he’s unconscious.”

“Not normal burns,” Cass observes. She knows what burns from fire look like. What burns from coals look like. From hot metal. From electricity. She shakes herself, holding the flashlight closer. Dick’s face is slack, not even a flicker behind his eyelids.

She shakes herself once more. Steady.

“Not...normal,” she repeats, pressing a hand to Dick’s cheek. It’s cold, but there’s a soft brush of air from his breathing. She bites her lip. “Can’t think of the word.”

“He was with Damian,” Bruce growls, and at the same time there’s a sharp creak from the dark.

Cass jumps up, smacking the flashlight again until it stops flickering and aiming it around them. The ballroom is empty. But so was the study.

“Need to move.”

Bruce nods, already gathering Dick up over his shoulder as his flashlight turns wildly. He doesn’t ask her to carry him, something sharp and protective in the way he carefully lifts him. Cass says nothing about it, just keeps hers trained to the dark expanse of the ballroom floor.

“Kitchen pantry,” Bruce says lowly. “Defensible, but we won’t be locked in. Spacious enough for the three of us.”

“Medical,” she responds, spying a shadow from the corner of her eye. It doesn’t move. “And Damian.”

“We can—”

Both of their flashlights flicker out at the same moment the air changes, pulling thin.

“Bruce,” she whispers, stepping towards where he’d been standing.

“Here,” a low voice whispers back. She steps closer, reaching out until a hand meets hers. “Doorway six strides out. Our 3 o’clock.”

 _“Wayne,”_ another voice rasps, and Cassandra swears, whirling with the flashlight out.

It connects.

Something makes a pained noise and in that instant the flashlight flickers back on.

Cassandra stumbles back, ready to swing again but. But.

The space where she hit is empty.

"Pantry, now," Bruce snaps as they both cast around the vacant room. 

“Not a ghost,” she spits as Bruce grabs her and they both stumble from the room, Dick still alarmingly silent over Bruce’s tight-strung shoulders. The ballroom behind them remains empty until it disappears, Cassandra’s heart pounding. “It said—”

“Wayne,” Bruce grunts. His flashlight is aimed before them, the narrow hall to the kitchen longer than before. “I know.”

Cass breathes as they reach the pantry. Breathes as they swing the door open, the room nearly as large as the Manor’s walk-in closets. Breathes as Bruce carefully lowers Dick to the ground, something panicked tearing across his shoulders even as his face remains blank.

She stations herself to watch the door, flashlight held steadily— _steadily_ — at the door. Bruce, behind her, makes a noise.

“It’s personal, then,” he says quietly. “We need more information. I have a plan, but we need to find Damian and establish communication with someone outside the Manor. If it's personal, there could be other factors at play than just a single meta with a grudge.”

“Maybe not personal,” she counters. Steady hand. She doesn’t want to turn to see what Bruce is thinking. “Maybe...they’ve been listening.”

Bruce falls quiet at that. Several seconds pass by, and for a fraction of a second Cass thinks she hears footsteps pounding above them.

She presses her eyes shut, forcing away the feeling of being rooted to the spot. _Be better. No missteps_. Bruce, Dick, Damian need her. _She_ needs her.

There’s a low noise, then sharp, laboured gasp. 

“Dick?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also a general psa in response to very sharp-eyed commenter who noticed some some ahhh potential current plot references found in a previous story. 
> 
> first of all, I am thrilled (and astonished!) someone caught that! second…ahaha, yeah. that’s kind of a thing I do. not to be sneaky per se, I just think it's funny. little winks at myself as I'm writing if I have vague concepts of future stuff, or small references between stories is kinda hilarious to me if I'm reading back. some of them are pretty obvious (Damian's mice) some not so much (redacted for suspense reasons) but yeah aha they're there. kinda just. existing. collect them all! 
> 
> anyway.
> 
> thanks for reading, drop by my [tumblr](https://prismatic-et-al.tumblr.com) if you have more questions about that I guess, I don’t do spoilers but it is lovely to hear from people. 
> 
> take care of yourself! and stay tuned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for minor body horror 
> 
> and also thank you discoreos for informing me I misused my last brain cell and initially put this in cut scenes. I am. so tired.

_12:04 AM_

_November 1_

* * *

One moment Damian is listening to Richard speak, the next it feels as though a hot iron has clamped around his wrist.

He shouts, whirling and bringing his sword in a downstroke, but the hand doesn’t release—it drags him backwards, and he stumbles.

“Grayson!” he shouts, twisting. The thing around his wrist is burning, he’s surprised he can’t see flames sparking up in the darkness as he brings the sword down again. “ _Grayson!”_

Grayson doesn’t—he doesn’t come, even as Damian is dragged, struggling against what feels like a still-hot welding around his wrist, further into the dark.

“Richard!” he shouts again in vain, because a part of him knows that if Grayson could get to him, he would have already.

Which means Grayson is already gone.

Damian grips his sword, twisting again and trying to get his feet under him. If he has to get out of this himself and do all of the rescuing, so be it. Grayson, Cain, and Father—

In a smooth, only somewhat painful motion Damian leverages his wrist, lunging with the sword at the same time—it connects, and there’s a horrible noise as he’s thrown to the ground. Damian gasps, clutching his shoulder with an burning wrist and leveling his sword.

There’s scraping all around him, the sound of heavy breathing

 _“You,_ ” the voice says from behind him. Damian spins, gasping. He can’t be sure how far he was dragged, what direction he’s even facing. _“...Wayne.”_

All at once, the noise vanishes, and Damian gulps in a breath. The air is suddenly fuller, warmer.

_Wayne._

Someone is shouting.

 _“Damian!”_ Grayson’s voice rings out, faint from distance and uncertain direction. He opens his mouth to call back, but thinks better of it.

 _Wayne._ The thing...knows him. Knows his family. 

_“If you can hear me, find a place to hide!”_ Richard’s voice is strained, uncharacteristically so. _“Go to—go to the place where Lulu and Zeb used to live! I’ll come get you, I promise!”_

A coded phrase, in the sense the intruder won’t know the context. In the sense that now he can be sure it is Richard calling him. Damian exhales, pressing an aching hand to his aching shoulder and centering himself.

Grayson isn’t gone, even if he had been for a second. Which means Father isn’t gone either, nor Cain. It’s only common sense.

He stills as the shouting continues, more muffled now.

 _“Whoever’s there, you might as well face me!_ ” Grayson sounds furious. _“No need for games, it’s just me now!”_

Damian ignores the uncomfortable feeling in his chest at the roughness of Grayson’s voice, even as the words fade into nothing. He has an objective, and he and Grayson will find each other and be able to regroup.

Focus on the objective.

His eye catches on a dull glitter. Then another. He can see, he realizes, holding up his sword and catching a faint spark of light.

The dining room.

He widens his eyes as much as possible, trying to force his eyes to adjust. The room complies, shapes jumping out as he puts his back to the wall.

Drake’s room. He needs to meet Grayson at Drake’s room.

He sticks to the wall, heading for the door to the kitchen. The hall there is...extremely dark, but utterly silent.

Damian bears forth the sword. If the spirit—though Damian isn’t as certain if that’s what it truly is, anymore—can see in the dark, it will see he’s ready.

He makes it to the kitchen without incident. It’s lighter, moonlit and serene. The crystal bowl of candy on the table winks in the dark.

Next to it, a cellphone.

There’s the sudden pounding of feet echoing through the halls, the walls; Damian spins, staring from doorway to doorway, unable to assess from which it’s coming. He grips his sword, backing up so his back is guarded.

Damian grabs the phone before creeping to the nearest doorway, lifting it so the faint screen light casts down the hall. 

There’s not even an echo.

Damian takes a deep breath, holding the cellphone aloft with one hand and bearing forth the sword with another. Not good form, but it will have to do. With that, he plunges into the hall.

Damian’s familiar with silence; meditation is crucial, and stakeouts require stillness and concentration that the others—namely Grayson and Brown—seem to reject at his expense. He’s aware they’re capable of it, as much as any of them are, and yet they still insist on chatter whenever he mentions it.

But this silence is...not meditative. It’s predatory. Damian is aware of the difference.

So when the quiet is broken by a pained, familiar shout, a commotion like thunder, he goes against every instinct he has to stay unnoticed

"Grayson!" he shouts. He darts smoothly over the wood floors, mindful of where he’s stepping on the boards. The faint phone light is barely a comfort. "Grayson?"

By the time he’s reached the bottom of the back stairs, he's wondering if he imagined hearing anything at all. 

It’s only when he starts up the stairs, white light beaming upwards and casting strange shapes below him, that he senses….something.

He looks back into the pooling darkness below him, the empty stairs. The light doesn’t reach the far corners, and Damian grips his sword tighter, glaring at the dark.

“Who’s there?” he shouts, sword held high. “Show yourself!”

There’s nothing. He turns, quickening his pace up the stairs.

A scraping breath, below him. He whirls, snarling.

“What kind of coward—”

Damian freezes. For a shameful, eternal, fraction of a second he freezes at the sudden shape on the stairs below, huge, indistinct and buried in shadow. It moves.

He starts to lift the phone but the light catches on the glitter of an eye, and Damian nearly drops it, transfixed

Then he blinks and the shape is gone.

“Who—” he lets out a harsh breath, casting the light around the bare steps. “Whoever you are, I order you to tell me where you took the others.”

He takes a step down, leveling the sword and the light despite his burning wrist. Ghosts, he’d read today, often want something, want to do something.

Unfinished business, or the like.

He lowers his sword, narrowing his eyes at the dark.

“Whatever you want, you may tell me,” he announces, voice echoing. “And I swear upon my mantle that I will help you accomplish it, as long as you return the others.”

For a moment, silence, where Damian bites his tongue against the dizzying pain on his wrist, which he is realizing more and more is no moderate burn as it sends shooting pains up his arm. Then there’s a distant, familiar, voice

_“Cassandra!”_

“Father!” Damian whirls, uncertain which direction to face; the sound is coming from all around, bouncing around the stairwell. He aims the light up the stairs. “Father, are you up there?”

There’s a creak from the stair below him.

This time he doesn’t turn. The second he starts taking the steps faster, the creaking behind him grows louder, until he’s sprinting up the steps with the dark pounding behind him.

He reaches the top, gasping in pain as he twists his injured shoulder to seize the balustrade and catapult himself down the hall.

The footsteps quicken as he sprints. Damian knows that if he makes it to Drake’s room with it hot on his heels, he won’t be safe. He needs to act.

He stops short, whirling and bringing the flat of his blade around in a side stroke.

His sword comes down into empty air.

Damian exhales, unbalanced as he scans the hall around him. He could call for the others; he’d been certain that was Father before, certain that Grayson had been the one to shout in pain.

But the quiet is...unnerving. He has a means of communication, the cellphone. And Drake’s room, to his right, is unlocked.

It’s far from ideal; Damian doesn’t like the idea of being cornered, and Drake’s closet is atrociously out of order with stacks of clothes and discarded papers and wires all tangled together. Damian sniffs as he pushes aside what appears to be a dusty, half-made model of a sun, a skateboard deck, and a frankly disturbing illustration of a cat in a box with its eyes crossed out. He will be having a word with Drake about that last one, he thinks, as he shoves away a towering stack of empty shoeboxes with a grimace to reveal even more junk behind them.

No wonder he hadn’t noticed the mice for such a long time.

Damian exhales a shaky breath, turning the phone over in his hands as he props himself into a defensive position with his sword.

Second mission. Contact.

The phone, it turns out, is Grayson’s. He hacks it easily, biting his tongue as he scrolls past his own face half-smiling out from next to Grayson's in the backdrop and retrieves the built-in transmitter that connects to their regular communicators. There’s no guarantee it will go straight to Gordon—since they’re built for emergencies, they tend to ping the closest receiver.

He holds his breath as static buzzes into sound. Then curses as it fades back into static. There is no time to waste.

“This is Robin,” Damian says quietly, pausing to glance up at a sudden noise. He glares at the door, gripping his sword as he continues. “To whomever’s receiving this, I—”

_“Chhhh—amian?”_

Damian clutches the phone tighter, squeezing his eyes shut as the sudden, familiar voice crashes through the thicket of static.

“Todd?” he whispers. “Is that you?”

“ _—ere the_ hell _are you? Where the hell is_ B _, we’ve been waiting on you guys for fucking—hang_ on _.”_

There’s a muffled shout, and for a second Damian thinks it’s come from the door beyond. But then Todd is firing expletives and there’s a sound of a commotion across the line.

 _“There better be a good fucking reason you guys aren’t out here!”_ Todd snarls. _“We’ve been up to our shoulders in Ivy-Scarecrow-bullshit, Gotham is_ not _pulling her punches tonight—shit!”_

There’s another series of noises across the phone, the clatter of metal and stone.

“Todd,” Damian breathes, because he can’t be sure if his ears are playing tricks on him. If there really had been a scratch at the door, just now. “There...is a good reason.”

_“Well start— Signal, get down!”_

There’s a gunshot. Damian holds the phone very still, staring at the faintly glowing screen. It can’t...

 _“Ok,”_ Todd pants, and Damian can hear the click of a firearm being reloaded. _“You know what? I don’t even care why, I just want an ETA on some back up.”_

“Todd, we—“

There’s a long, deafening groan of wood. Damian holds his breath, trying to peek through the slat in the closet.

The room is still empty.

 _“What the hell was that?”_ Todd demands. “ _Where are you?_ ”

“There is...something in the Manor,” Damian whispers in a rush, gripping the phone and sword even tighter. “We—I’m alone. We were separated, and I can’t be certain if— I don’t know where they are.” Damian bites his tongue, tasting blood. “I lost Richard. We lost Father before that, and Cain before that. The threat remains at large.”

There’s a pause, and for a sickening moment Damian thinks Todd has hung up. Then:

“ _Are you—crap. You’re serious. Fuck.”_ There’s a hiss, like Todd is blowing air through his teeth. _“_ Fucking _Murphy. God. Are you armed? Where are you? Can you make it to the Cave?”_

“I am...hidden,” Damian says, a little steadier. He’s accomplished mission two. He’s reached someone on the outside. “Father engaged lockdown, before he vanished. We thought it could be contained, but— ”

_“You’re sure it’s an it? Not a person?”_

“We…” Damian’s eyes jump to the closet door, where he could have sworn something moved between the slats. Just your imagination, he berates himself. Stop acting like a child. He lowers his voice further all the same. “I believe it is inhuman. Richard thought it was supernatural, but I...it is not intangible. It managed to move objects and it makes...it’s capable of knocking. And vanishing.”

 _And wielding weapons, and grabbing people,_ he doesn’t say with a grimace. His shoulder stings. His wrist feels like it's on fire. 

_“Ok. Ok. Stay where you are I—ugh, fuck.”_ Todd makes that hiss-sigh again. _“Red Robin and Spoiler were supposed to be closer to the Manor than me and Signal, but I haven’t heard from them since Ivy hit the field. I_ literally _cannot leave right this minute, we have a batch of civilians with us we're trying to get to safety, but I’ll see what Oracle can do about the lockdown, just—”_

There’s a creak from somewhere in the room beyond. A heavy step.

“Shut up,” Damian snaps, whisper harsh as his chest tightens. Todd says something sharp, and Damian curls closer around the phone, frantically turning down the volume. “Quiet, Todd!”

He leans ever so slightly, aligning his eye with the gap in the closet door. He breathes out, pressing himself closer, just enough to see—

There’s a shadow standing in the center of the room.

“Richard?” The hushed word escapes him before he can think better of it, but the shadow doesn’t seem to hear. It’s facing the window, arms slightly akimbo. Damian breathes out.

 _“You found him?”_ Todd at least speaks quietly, this time. _“Do_ not _leave his side, ‘kay twerp? Actually, let me talk to him, I— fuck!”_ There’s a gunshot. Another. _“Gah, sorry kid, I gotta—”_

The line goes dead.

“I don’t…” Damian bites his tongue. He lifts his eyes to the gap in the closet door.

It’s...definitely Richard’s profile, blue-lit in the moonlight. He is wearing— not what he’d been wearing before, instead some sort of dark, ragged coat that hangs well to his knees. He is...staring at the moon.

Something is wrong.

Damian grips his sword, tucking the phone into his sweatshirt and summoning another breath.

The closet door opens outward with an agonizing creak.

Richard doesn’t look over. A wretched, frozen part of Damian doesn’t want him to. Doesn’t want to draw his attention.

“Richard?” he ventures, tense.

He takes one step, the door drifting shut behind him with another drawn-out creak. Damian makes a mental note to ask Pennyworth where the oil is. Not because the sound of those hinges is unnerving, it’s just...tactically unsound.

Richard finally turns his head, and Damian sucks in a sharp breath. Sheer instinct has already raised his sword.

_“You..”_

The moon glares from the smooth skin of Richard’s brow. Too smooth. Flat, empty, nearly grey skin paved over where an eye should be. Part of the indent of his nose, blurred into a featureless angle. Half of his mouth erased, like skin had been smeared over it in a web.

_“Wayne.”_

Damian doesn’t lower the sword, keeping it level as his heart jackhammers against his sternum. _This is nothing new,_ he tells himself. People are changed and transformed all the time, magical horrors, nightmarish powers. This isn’t…he can...Damian can fix this.

Richard glares at him with one unnaturally pale eye. He seems to loom over Damian, filling the room, larger than he’s ever been before.

“Richard, it’s me,” Damian says unsteadily. Every instinct he has is screaming, and he physically cannot make himself lower the sword, but he reaches his other hand out. “It’s me. Robin.”

The head tilts. The angle is too far.

“I don’t know what happened to you, but I—it’s alright.” He bites his tongue again, the blood there still leaking out. Bitter. Richard’s single eye is pale, fixed. “We can help you. Father can help, we just— ”

 _“You,”_ Richard snaps, and lunges faster than Damian can duck.

There’s a sudden _bang_ like a gunshot, and Damian is leaping forward as Richard turns to look as well, steadying his sword between himself and the door. Richard is in no state to fight, and whatever did this to him must—

Cain is standing in the doorway, eyes wide and face pale. She stares.

A burning hand lands on his shoulder from behind.

“No!” she shouts, and in the blink of an eye she’s across the room and seizing Damian’s wrist. There’s an inhuman noise of pain as Cain spins, dragging Damian away in one direction as her leg comes up in a kick around the other side. “Get away!”

Damian is forced from the room, falling into the hall as the door slams shut behind them. In the sudden darkness, Cain throws herself at it, grabbing the handle and pulling it closed as banging shakes the very wall.

“Cain!” he yells, even as he leaps up to help her. “Stop this, we need to _fix_ him, he’s not—“

“Not him,” she spits, and Damian doesn’t think he’s ever seen this kind of fear in Cain’s eyes. “Not _anyone_.”

“What—” Damian stutters as the— the thing inside the room thuds against the door. “What does that mean?”

“Empty,” Cain says, expression near-frantic as she braces her feet, still pulling the door shut. _Thud_. “No one. No one inside. Just hate. Just want. Not...not a person.”

Damian bites his tongue, the words shooting an involuntary coldness straight through his chest.

“Why does it look like _Grayson?_ ” he demands, ignoring the sensation. “It’s not...he didn’t...”

“Safe,” Cain says, gritting her teeth. “We...downstairs. Dick, and Bruce. Found each other. Sent me to get you.”

Thud. There’s a creak of wood, and Damian adjusts his grip on his sword.

“What is it?” he says, picking up the fallen flashlight. The white light glances off Cain’s wide, dark eyes.

“Don’t know,” she grits out, just as she’s yanked forward. A slice of light escapes from the room, as she tugs the door closed again with a bang. She huffs. “Strong.”

Damian only lets himself stare for a second at the space where the eye had appeared.

She shakes her head, brow set.

“Get downstairs, I can—”

The door snaps open, a hand forcing its way out through the narrow gap and scrabbling against the wood. Cain twists, not releasing the handle even as it seizes her wrist— the figure behind the door is towering, the moonlight completely blocked out by its mass.

Damian can see the lines of stress pulling through her muscles. He tries to help, adding his weight by pulling Cain back even as the gap widens.

The hand on her wrist is rough and veiny, unnaturally pale in the harsh flashlight—Cain doesn’t make a noise as the nails suddenly dig into her skin, renting down the back of her wrist, but Damian shouts. He brings the flat edge of his sword down to the sound of a nauseating screech and another bang as Cain yanks the door shut once more.

There are three soft, distinct thumps. Thumb. Index. Middle.

“I didn’t mean—” he starts, staring at his sword. Damian lets the flashlight fall on the fingers for only an instant before jerking away. They’re still twitching, the rotted knuckles oozing something...pale.

 _Not a person,_ Cain had said. Damian grimaces.

“Go,” Cain says again, spitting hair from her mouth. The nail-marks are long and deep and burnt-looking, blood welling up down her wrist and the back of her hand. Damian can’t take his eyes from it. He doesn’t know what’s different about seeing Cain’s blood than any other crime scene he’s ever been to. Every other person who’s blood he had shed. But then Cain dips her head, catching his eye with a glare. “ _Go._ I’ll hold this.”

“That’s— don’t be ridiculous,” Damian snaps, shaking himself. He—this is just another battle. Damian al-Ghul Wayne is not shaken by blood. Robin does not run from alarm. Even if he had, in a way, run from alarm before...but that had been more of a rendez-vous than anything. “Father and Richard will find us, we can keep it contained until—”

Cass shakes her head.

“Sent me. Not coming. They can’t...move. Leave.”

“You said they were safe!” Damian hadn’t meant to let his voice rise quite so much, and he tightens his grip on his sword, aiming the flashlight down the hall. “Are there more of them? Are Father and Grayson trapped?”

“Injured,” Cain grumbles, swiping her bleeding hand on her shirt before returning it to the doorknob. “Think there’s only...one.”

There’s a deafening crack of wood. Something scraping along the inside of the door. Damian runs the flashlight over the panelling, searching for where the integrity might be compromised.

“Go,” Cain hisses, over another hideous scrape. “I can...handle this.”

“If you distract it, I can injure it from behind,” Damian argues, standing up straighter and raising the sword to shoulder height. “Splitting up is a terrible strategy. We’ll be better trying to subdue it together, or lead it somewhere—”

“Robin,” Cain says, voice going soft even if the blazing look in her eyes doesn’t falter. “They need...medical supplies. We need light. Contact others. A way out.”

“The others aren't coming, and I’m not leaving!” Damian snaps, voice once again rising without his permission. He scowls, lowering it to a whisper. “If there _are_ more, we’ll both be caught anyway, and no one will be able to help Richard and Father.”

“Robin. Take it,” she says, nodding at the flashlight. There’s a soft thud from the inside of the room, as if the creature were moving around inside. “Go straight to the kitchen. In the pantry.”

They stare at each other for several seconds, Damian very aware of his heart pounding in his chest. Father and Grayson alive downstairs, in need of help. Cain’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“I will return with help,” he swears, stomach twisting at the thought of leaving Cain alone in the dark. They’re used to operating in the dark, certainly, but… He fishes the phone from his sweatshirt, tapping on the light function. “You may keep the light. Be...” Cain is watching him, gaze steady. Damian bites his tongue. “I will see you soon, Cain.”

The corner of her mouth twitches up.

“Soon, little brother,” she agrees. There’s a pitched scratch at the door.

Damian doesn’t hesitate a second longer.

His shadow dances along the wall as he runs, flickering iterations as he rounds the corner. He doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you're enjoying! take care of yourself stay tuned etc.


	9. Chapter 9

_12:09 AM_

_November 1_

* * *

"Damian?” is the first thing Dick gasps, and something pulls tight in Bruce’s chest as he leans further over him, dropping the flashlight. Dick is shaking his head, sweat on his brow as he struggles to sit up. “You—”

“Dick, you’re safe. Tell me what happened,” Bruce says, because a million scenarios are playing out in his mind, none of them pleasant. His arm is almost numb with pain and there’s someone in the house who knows his name and Damian is missing. Nothing about this situation is giving him calm. “Where’s Damian.”

“He’s— he’s upstairs, I told him— _ah_ ,” Dick hisses as Bruce grabs his arm by instinct to stop him from sagging backwards, and lets go immediately, heart seizing. Dick squeezes his eyes shut, breathing heavily, and it’s all Bruce can do not to snap at him for more answers.

Finally, Dick’s eyes peel open and he peers at Bruce through the dark. He exhales.

“Is — Bruce?”

Bruce squints in the sudden light as Cass helpfully turns her flashlight on them. She’s not looking at him, instead standing tense before the door. Dick turns his head, squinting as well into the light.

“Cass?” He blinks rapidly, as if trying to focus. “I thought you both were—”

“Where is _Damian_ ,” Bruce asks again, physically restraining himself from grabbing Dick by the arms. As it is, he can’t stop the heat from building in his chest, in his voice. “Where did you two _go_ , you were supposed to stay—”

“Bruce,” Cassandra says softly. “He’s not.”

Cassandra doesn’t elaborate, but Bruce takes a deep breath, surveying Dick. He’s clearly still disoriented, eyes flickering a bit too much for Bruce’s taste. His eyes land on the burns.

Bruce himself has carved out a hollow in his mind specifically to focus away from the pain of the burn, the sensation unnatural. It’s an insistent pain, like his skin is being flayed away from that one spot, the feeling almost familiar. He grimaces, staring at the long, dark burns up Dick’s forearms.

“Dick,” he says, quieter. He slows his voice, pressing a hand to an unmarred spot on Dick’s neck and catching Dick’s darting eyes. “Do you know where Damian is?”

“I— I lost him,” Dick pants finally, eyebrows pulling together in pain. “I don’t know what— I told him to go to Tim’s room. I promised I— I promised I’d come find him.”

Bruce opens his mouth when Dick doesn’t elaborate, prepared to press _when was this, why, how did you lose him_ but Cassandra’s quiet voice cuts through the dark.

“I’ll go.”

She twitches her flashlight from them, and Bruce grabs his own as she reaches for the door without hesitation. He keeps one eye on Dick, who’s let his head fall back against the shelf.

“See you,” Cassandra says, as if that's all that needs to be said, and Bruce feels his chest seize once more. 

“No,” he says firmly. “They’re still in the Manor, and they may have a personal vendetta. Going alone isn’t an option.”

“You can’t leave,” she says, gesturing to Dick, whose eyes are clenched shut. “I’ll bring Damian back. We’ll be together.”

“No,” Bruce says again, and a look crosses Cassandra’s face that he can’t interpret.

“I can,” she says, and the way the light falls Bruce makes out the hand holding the flashlight tighten. “I can do it. I’ll bring him back. Trust me.”

  
“Cassandra, I can’t—” Bruce won’t say it. He won’t say _lose two of you_ because that implies Damian is lost and cannot be returned. “—risk being you separated if they cause these kinds of injuries. There’s clearly more here we don’t yet know.”

Cassandra stares for a beat, and in the silence Bruce can hear Dick’s labored breathing.

“Damian,” she says. “Is separated. Can’t risk him. Trust me.”

And for once Bruce wishes Cassandra were less skilled, because she has already vanished and slid the door shut before Bruce can even stand. He yanks the pantry door back open, a rush of air brushing past him.

“Cassandra,” he hisses, glancing around the darkened kitchen. It’s perfectly quiet. Perfectly peaceful. Cassandra is gone. Dick, behind him, is here.

Bruce takes a moment to master the feeling in his chest. He trusts Cassandra. She must know that, of course he does, he trusts her with the world. More.

He doesn’t trust the world with _her_.

He paces back to Dick, angling the flashlight over the burns and reaching for a medical kit peeking out from a shelf. It’s not until he’s winding the first strip of fabric around Dick’s wrist that that he seems to jerk back into awareness.

“Bruce?” he rasps. Bruce doesn’t stop wrapping the fabric even when Dick hisses out a breath, just angles the light so Dick can see his face. “Was...Cass here?”

“She went to get Damian.” Bruce says, keeping his tone neutral. “She’ll be back...soon.”

Dick sits up straighter, eyes going wide.

“Shit, no, she can’t, she—did you see it’s face?”

Bruce shakes his head, wincing at a stab of pain in his own arm. He adjusts the light so he can see the fabric again, finishing off one bandage before reaching for another dry ribbon of cloth.

“Too dark.” He tears the cloth with his teeth. _Trust me,_ Cassandra says. “Hold out your arm.”

Dick lets out a long hissing breath, pulling himself upright against the shelf with no motion to move his arm. Another exhale. Bruce frowns.

“Dick, did you hear—”

“I know who it is.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, just waits for Dick to draw in another breath. The dark presses in, and Bruce is exceedingly conscious of the quiet.

It’s been three minutes since Cassandra left. It takes about two to reach Tim’s room. Perhaps three, if she’s going slowly.

“Dick,” Bruce finally prompts, lifting the flashlight. “You need to—“

_“Hush.”_

Bruce frowns, falling silent. But then Dick shakes his head, seizing Bruce’s good wrist.

“No, Bruce, I mean—” His eyes are pinpoints in the harsh light, sweat on his brow pronounced and shining. “It’s _Hush_.”

Bruce stills. Dick is staring at him.

“How is that possible.”

Dick shakes his head, wincing.

“I don’t know. But I’m positive. It’s— it’s him.”

Hush. It can't— 

There's no lie in Dick's face.

Bruce’s mind runs back to that night—the last time he’d laid eyes on Tommy Elliot. Clark’s and Dick’s earnest attempts at a bachelor party, complete with a peaceful fishing pocket universe. Probably the most Bruce would have gotten a chance to relax in months, cut short by what came after.

Elliot’s distraction for Clark. His attack, targeting Nightwing as he raved about losing his rightful place in Bruce’s life. The horrible sizzle as they’d careened into the door to the malfunctioning pocket universe and then—

The sudden drop in Bruce’s stomach at the sight of the empty street. The thought of Dick alone with Elliot’s cold, unstoppable rage, wherever they had vanished to.

Dick is shaking his head, still panting.

“I told you, when he—when Hush and I broke the pocket universe, we ended up somewhere in between realities. The Betwixt, or something.”

“I remember.” Bruce grabs Dick’s wrist to distract himself, pulling his arm forward at an angle he can wrap the burn. “You told me there were creatures there who...fed on self identity. Gone Men.”

Dick squeezes his eyes shut, and Bruce tenses because he can’t be sure it’s in pain, or bracing himself for what he’s about to say.

“Yeah,” he exhales shortly. “Dramatic, right? Promise I didn’t pick the names. But I didn’t tell you, I—Elliot was trying to figure out why I was so important to you, not just as Nightwing. Why I got to be a part of your life when he didn’t.”

“You were unmasked when you made it back through the portal,” Bruce realizes aloud. It was a detail he’d noticed, but failed to follow up on. Now, the implications are glaringly clear. “He knows your identity.”

Dick nods, not meeting his eye.

“But it’s not—that’s not the point. The point is, he _laughed_. He laughed when he realized I was _Dick Grayson_. Because he’d changed his face again from the last time we saw him. He doesn’t look like you anymore.”

Bruce lets go of the bandage, understanding creeping up his spine.

“He has your face.”

Dick shudders.

“Part of it, at least. The...Gone Men. They used to be people, but I think everything inside them that made them _them_ just got...lost.” Dick works his jaw, pressing a hand to the bandage on his forearm. “He’s...”

The words, the idea, seem to have an impact on Dick, and Bruce can’t say it sits well with him, either. But there’s something Dick isn’t—oh.

“You think he’s become one of them.” Bruce looks upon the last, unwrapped burn with fresh eyes, conscious of his own blister that feels as though it’s scalding a hole through his arm. They _are_ remarkably similar to the ones Dick had been covered in once they’d rescued him from the portal from the Betwixt, a blaze of light and sound in the cave as Bruce had dragged him back into their reality. “Do you think he could be aware enough to remember his…prior convictions?”

“Like wanting to take over your life and everything in it?” Dick shrugs with another wince, offering his wrist. “Why else is he here? How did he even find a way to escape, is my question. I tried—” Dick’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t go on, and Bruce’s mind is racing too quickly to prompt him.

Dr. Thomas Elliot. Tommy. Flickers of childhood memories, the kind that are stained by what he knows now. The lies, violence, the jarring disregard in his voice when Bruce had found out the truth of the Elliots’ deaths.

Bruce has been told before, that it’s not his fault a friend had become someone he hadn’t thought them capable of becoming. Granted, Harvey had been through the catalyst of a grievous injury. Tommy...Tommy’s father had been a condemnable man, true, but Tommy had still grown into what he was.

And now he’s not even that.

He stands, breathing through another searing stab of pain in his side. He glances at the silent door. Calculates.

Cassandra’s should be back any moment. Hush—and it may as well be the ghost of him— is in the house. Bruce has heard nothing. He looks down.

“Dick?”

“If I’d just reached a little more,” Dick has a hand clenched in his hair, breathing harder than before “I was—why is it _always_ that the people I _can't_ —I could have reached him, and now he’s, he’s what?” Dick wheezes out a short, harsh laugh. “An unperson? A _ghost_?”

“Dick, stop,” Bruce orders, genuine alarm rising through him. He crouches again, reaches for Dick’s hand, tugging it from his hair and glancing over his shoulder at the door. ”Dick, you were barely conscious when we got you back through the portal, there was no possible way—”

“Don’t you dare say it wasn’t my fault,” Dick says, still panting. “You weren’t there. I could have reached him. I could have gotten us upstairs, barricaded us from the Gone Men, and now he’s not even—”

“ _Dick,_ ” Bruce says sharply, unable to dull the razor edge of panic in his voice. Dick is gripping his arms now, which cannot be _not_ painful, if Bruce’s own burn is anything to go by. He grabs Dick’s hands, pulling them away from the bandages and holding them together. “It’s done. Even if it were your fault, we can’t change it now.”

Dick takes in a visible breath. And another, his hands cold in Bruce’s grasp. Bruce curls them carefully in his own, mindful of the index finger, permanently stiff from one too many breaks.

“You’re in pain,” he says lowly, reaching far into his own aching chest for the words. “And that makes everything look worse. But your guilt won’t help anyone right now. I need you to focus, Dick.”

The second the words pass his lips he wants to take them back, rephrase, redo. Dick won’t know what he meant. Dick will take it as indifference. Dick won’t understand he means— he doesn’t mean it in that way.

But Dick just nods, pulling his hands from Bruce’s and swiping hair from his eyes.

“I know,” he says, drawing in a visible breath. “Sorry. I know. I’m— just give me a second.”

Bruce crouches there for a moment more, feeling useless and harmful and like he should be doing something else to change the expression on Dick’s face. He picks through the medical kit, noting the lack of burn ointment for the second time and cursing himself thrice over for not stocking it in this kit.

Finally, Dick straightens a bit more, sweat still standing on his brow but expression more controlled.

“Cass should be back,” Dick says in a breath. “Getting to Tim’s room doesn’t take this long, and I think I know what Hush is doing.”

Bruce motions for him to speak, beginning to wrap his own arm and not trusting himself to say more.

“He— the Betwixt,” Dick says, closing his eyes. “It’s a weird place. Twilight Zone-on-steroids weird. I think maybe he— he grabbed me, and for a second I swear it felt like I was there. I remember what the air was like, and —”

“You think he’s moving between dimensions,” Bruce states, pausing. He thinks back to the moment his own arm blossomed into fire, the sudden strain in his lungs. The reading he’d done on the Betwixt, after the fact. It’s walls are permeable, and Bruce hadn’t doubted he could find a way to pass through them down entirely— something he’d considered, to free Tommy from the place, before they’d lost any sign of him existing at all.

Bruce had...he’d thought he’d died there. But if even a part of him exists….

“That’s….possible,” is what he says. “Whatever is left of Elliot is no doubt smart enough to find a way to move between them. But to consider that he could pull us, in this dimension, _into_ the Betwixt—”

“Damian,” Dick says, voice pained. “He—”

There’s a knock at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey remember that time hush got trapped in what amounts to a soul-sucking drainage ditch in the fabric of the multi-verse and then literally no one mentioned it ever ever again? lmao I do. 
> 
> in all seriousness the betwixt is a really cool canon concept, that they just….never follow up on…ever. which is hilarious! and also means I get to make up the rules.
> 
> thanks for the support and enthusiasm, it really helps :) stay tuned


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter brought to you by my questionable time management skills. please enjoy and let me know what you think :) 
> 
> edit: also THANK YOU for your enthusiasm about the plot twist??? super psyched about everyone just rolling with me picking up these story threads, I have plans for where we are going with this, and the support means quite a lot!
> 
> edit 2: taking a short break with this fic, but rest assured it will not go unfinished. <3 take care!

_12:15 AM_

_November 1_

* * *

Cass breathes out. In. Brace. Pull. Center weight.

The…nonperson has gone quiet, from behind the door. Cass doesn’t dare let up.

The quiet, the still, is...unnerving. Un....

She should not have won this tug-of-war, because as strong as she knows she is, the way the thing had carried itself was strong the way an animal is strong.

Unrestrained. Unrestrained and….

The word _empty_ sits at the tip of her tongue. Not empty like a box with nothing in it. Empty like something that had been scraped out.

 _Pumpkins,_ Cass thinks, shivering. She, and Stephanie, and Barbara had carved pumpkins together.

“You gotta cut it open and scoop out the guts first,” Stephanie had said, lifting the pumpkin stem dripping with straggling goop and seeds. “Or else you’re just going to have pumpkin guts leaking from its face. Unless that’s what you’re going for.”

“Has Dick seriously never roped you into this before?” Barbara had asked, still in the process of drawing perfectly detailed Gotham City skyline on hers. “I could have sworn I saw some on the Manor porch, last Halloween.”

Cass had glanced down at her own pumpkin, doubtful. Last Halloween, she’d been...training. She remembered. The week before. She’d...missed a step in a fight. Cut across the forearm, sharp and clean and surprisingly painful. Something that had shaken her with anger and frustration and more fear than she wanted to admit. She’d spent the rest of the week drilling, remembering more than she was normally comfortable with about times when pain wasn’t...surprising.

Dick...might have mentioned pumpkins. Cider. But Cass….she knows she can be better. Not miss steps. Misstep. Train better. Be better. It wasn’t about pushing herself, she’d reasoned. It was about maintaining.

And even that hadn’t stopped her from missing another step. From Bruce shooting her a look, sharp and alarmed.

“Cass?”

She’d just shrugged, when Barbara had finally looked up expectantly.

“What about...after?” she’d asked, because something in Barbara’s shoulders had changed _(curiosity concern)_.

“After?”

“After Halloween.”

“You leave it on your porch until it rots,” Steph had said cheerfully, still scooping goop from the inside and adding to the pile already strewn across the newspaper-covered table. “And then you take the rotten crap and leave it in the back of the batmob-”

“Steph,” Babs had scolded _(amusement affection)_ , and Steph had cackled _(joy calm intent)_ and Cass had managed to laugh and duck right as she’d flung a spoonful of pumpkin guts across the table towards them.

 _Pumpkins_ , Cass thinks again, listening to the sudden silence behind the door.

Scraped out. Rotting from the inside.

In the seconds she’d seen _it_ —standing behind Damian, face half-erased and silhouetted in the moonlight—she could see everything. See the rot in how it bore its chest. See the hollowness of the angle its head had tilted. Empty. Empty and still leaking.

Leaking hunger. Leaking malevolence.

Cass has always known what monsters look like. They have faces. Hands for reaching, fingers for pointing, for pulling triggers. Wants. Intentions. Convictions. She likes those words, actually, because they sound harsh enough to match the rough, messy shift of a stance from _frustration_ to _aggression_.

She glances down at the thing’s severed fingers, still leaking...something that isn’t quite blood, onto the carpet. Her wrist is still bleeding, though the severity of the pain is more of an annoyance than anything, because something about it is sending dizzy, shooting aches all the way up her arm. 

She bites her lip.

That brief instant of faded moonlight. She’d seen how it moves. There aren’t….completely person-thoughts, in all that emptiness. Mostly hunger and hate and raw strength. It wants something specific, not that she could imagine what anything like this could want at all. But those things still translate into intention. And intention translates into movement.

She glares at the doorknob, steeling herself.

No missed steps. Missteps. Whatever. Bruce trusted her. She'd told Damian she could handle it. 

Cass lets go of the handle, snatches up the flashlight, and moves back into a ready stance in one smooth motion. Wall at her back, for caution and leverage. Flashlight throwing a single white circle onto the door. Ready. Breathe out. In. Steady.

The door remains flat and closed. It’s been almost a minute since the last sound.

Cass waits.

And waits more.

Breathe in. Out. Balance. Wait.

Another few heartbeats tick by. She blows a strand of hair out of her face, impatient.

Ok...Maybe not wait.

She dares a step forward, flashlight trained on the door. Steady.

The door bangs against the wall as she kicks it in.

No sound. Nothing barrels from the room.

Cass steps forward, wondering if Damian had made it to Dick and Bruce. Wondering at the pain in Dick’s shoulders, the panic in Bruce’s.

The room is...empty. The moonlight has dimmed, and she aims the flashlight into every corner, the open closet, the gap beneath the bed. The strange, pale not-blood is strewn all over the floor, smears on the wall by the door. She examines it, keeping her back to the places she’s inspected.

Pale blood...she stares. Not blood. Not in the room. Not a person. Not-people can do not-people things.

Like vanish.

Something creaks behind her.

Cass is already moving when hands seize her, and—burning, she’s _burning_ —

The world goes red.


End file.
